


Saareth Saarebas

by Synlover753



Series: Realm Lords [2]
Category: Dragon Age: Inquisition, Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim
Genre: Asala-taar, Child Abuse, Child Neglect, Collars, Consensual Sex, Dream Sex, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Evanuris, F/M, Fade Sex, Hurt/Comfort, Mentionings of Skyrim, No Underage Sex, Not Beta Read, Nothing Here takes place in Skyrim, Pain, Pain addiction, Plot Twists, Psychological Trauma, Qunari, Saarebas, Seheron, Slow Build, Slow Burn, Wet Dream, mild blood kink
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-22
Updated: 2018-04-06
Packaged: 2018-12-05 13:41:02
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death, Underage
Chapters: 27
Words: 78,026
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11579205
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Synlover753/pseuds/Synlover753
Summary: She grew up under the Qun. She understands war all too well, but things like love and friendship? She's lost. Will she find her way? Will everyone be too scared of the Saarebas that ran away from everything she knew?





	1. From Ataashi to Saarebas

**Author's Note:**

> So this is an idea that popped into my head and has been screaming at me to write, so here it is. Fair warning it is pretty dark. I died a little as I was writing this. I don't know what kind of update schedule I will do, but enjoy.
> 
> " " normal dialogue
> 
> ' ' thoughts
> 
> * * Qunlat dialogue (after she learns common)

Her first memory was of her Tama, a gentle face that was slightly weathered by time, horns that swooped back for added protection to her head, she was tall and proud of her children and always made time for her imekari. Her Tama had always encouraged her kids to be creative and helpful with their creativity. Always be open about what you can do. Ataashi thought she was just another three year-old-toddler. Tama said she was really intelligent, that meant smart. Tama was always telling her to always improve her vocabulary. There were lots of books that Tama read with her and she loved listening to Tama reading to her.

“...and so the two warriors split the dragon’s tooth so that no matter how far apart life may take them, they were bound by the dragon’s tooth.” That was Tama now, telling them a story before bedtime. Once Tama left and turned out the lights, the whisperings began.

“Ugh, why does Ataashi get all the attention?”

“She’s not even kossith.”

She was used to the whispers, she knew that the kids all thought she was weird, that was fine. It left her alone to read with her Tama. The whispers died down after a few minutes, but she was still awake. Normally when this would happen, she would be thinking over what she had read with her Tama, but tonight was abnormally warm on the tropical island that was called home. She felt dizzy even though she knew she was lying still on her cot, her breathing sped up and she felt her heart racing as she hugged her arms to her chest.

Ataashi squeezed her eyes shut and wished for herself to feel better with all her might. Had her eyes been open, she may have seen her body glowing as her heart rate slowed and her breathing eased. Green ethereal tendrils wrapped around her and she fell asleep.

The next morning she awoke and felt better than she had in a long time and she heard another human child complaining about the heat. Ataashi headed over with a cup of water, she handed it to the kid and he complained that it would be too hot. She looked at him, then to the cup of water. Ataashi waved her hand over the cup and she saw the water begin to stand still at the edges of the cup. She handed it back to him and she saw that he was looking at her terrified.

“Saarebas, Saarebas! Tama, Tama! Come quick.”

She looked around her to see that she was suddenly surrounded by the other children and the other Tamas. In the past the kids had looked at her with jealousy, now it was fear. She just wanted to help this kid, she remembered how she had felt the night before. She sat down on her bottom and wrapped her arms around her legs, looking every bit the three year old she was.

“Back away children, come take your child, Tamassran,” one Tama said in a mean voice towards her Tama. Her Tama finally made her way through the crowd that had gathered and trapped Ataashi in the middle. She was scooped up and held close to her Tama’s chest as they walked out of the play room.

“Tama, what’s wrong? What did I do? What’s a Sarlabath?” her Tama held her so that she was facing backwards and couldn’t see her Tama’s face.

“Saarebas, dear, it’s Saarebas. It’s what you are now, that is to be your place in the Qun.” she could hear the pain in her Tama’s voice.

“Is it bad?”

“It is who you are now, my dear child, I should have known, I shouldn’t have let you have your fun, I should have turned you in to be trained as soon as you could walk and talk, but I didn’t.” she could hear the sobs that her Tama was trying to keep back.

“Why Tama, what’s going to happen?”

“But I didn’t child, do you know why?”

“No, Tama, but I’m really scared.”

“Because I had hoped that your magic wouldn’t have manifested so quickly, but that’s what that was, my little Ataashi. You can use magic and now you must begin your training as a Saarebas, take comfort in your duty and be good. Listen to what they tell you, no matter what,” Tama pulled her back and looked into Ataashi’s eyes, “You hear me, you do whatever they tell you and you may live long enough.”

“Long enough for what Tama, what’s going on?”

“Promise me you will listen to them.”

The hard look in her Tama’s eyes seared within her mind and she found herself nodding and saying, “Yes, Tama. I promise.”

“No matter what?”

“No matter what,” she confirmed to her Tama, she nodded, seemingly satisfied and rounded the corner and they continued their journey. They continued in silence and finally Tama arrived at her destination, she was handed off to a well muscled man that looked at her with pity.

“You are free to go, Tamassran, I will take her to the Viddasala for assignment of Arvaarad,” the man told her Tama. Just as her Tama turned to leave, the man asked her, “how old is she?”

Her Tama paused and looked back at them for a moment, “Five years last month.”

She wondered why Tama lied, Tama had always told her that lying was bad. Why was Tama lying? They had celebrated her third birthday last week. The man nodded sadly and looked down at her, “You’re awfully small for your age.”

The man took her down a hallway that led to a small room where there was another woman and another man were waiting. The man holding her set her down on the table in the middle of the room, the woman looked at her as if she were a disgusting bug she wanted to squish.

“How old is it?” she barked at the man who had carried her.

“Five years according to her Tama,” he immediately responded. She could hear the pity in his voice and his restrained anger at the Viddasala.

“Hmm, awfully small, but no matter. I am the Viddasala, you are Saarebas and you will respond to such. This is your Arvaarad, he will be preparing you. Your life is now his to do with as he sees fit, you are his responsibility and you will obey everything he says. You understand?” She got the feeling the woman would not explain it again, even if she asked what all those words meant. She nodded, she had understood enough. Arvaarad was in charge of her and she had promised Tama that she would do whatever they wanted.

“Good, proceed,” the woman waved her hand in Arvaarad’s direction and left them, she watched the woman leave with the first man and she was left alone with Arvaarad.

“That was very good to not answer Viddasala verbally, child, but it is my duty to do this as your Arvaarad. Do you know what is about to happen to you?” She shook her head ‘no’ vigorously.

He nodded sadly at her, “because you are Saarebas, I must sew your mouth shut, but with enough slack for you to be fed.” She looked at him fearfully and covered her mouth with her hands. He gently moved her arms back to her side and helped her to lay down on the table and he picked up a bottle. “I will handle your training, but upon that completion you will be given to another Arvaarad for duty. This potion will make you sleep while I prepare you physically,” he pointed to his mouth and indicated for her to open hers. He quickly downed the potion down her throat and she fell to sleep almost instantly.

Ataashi, no, not Ataashi anymore, she was Saarebas now. Ataashi didn’t exist anymore. Saarebas awoke next and brought her hand up to her mouth to feel two strips of cloth wrapped around the top and bottom of her lips and sure enough a thin thread laced between her lips now. She began to tear up and took a deep breath through her nose to calm herself. Saarebas wouldn’t cry. They spoke of duty and didn’t look to have much patience, so Saarebas wouldn’t cry. She sat up and looked around to see Arvaarad watching her closely.

“You’re right, Saarebas, don’t cry,” she looked at him confused, he smiled at her, “I used to be with the Ben-Hassrath, so the Re-Educators sent me here to train Saarebas to respond to the control rod.” he lifted a strip of leather and a small golden stick. Both seemed to have matching symbols carved into each, she could feel that these items could both suppress her magic and unleash her magic. Arvaarad placed the leather strip around her neck and on the back of her neck locked the collar into place with the rod he held. She felt the magic that linked the two items and that only the rod would take off the collar.

“First we will test what you can do and then work on your response to the rod,” he helped her off the table and led her out of the room towards the opposite side she came in on. He looked back once to ensure that she followed him and led her quietly outside to a courtyard. She heard other children playing as she walked by and looked to see that they walked on the ledges above the children’s courtyard. She looked at them longingly for a moment before she shook herself and focused her attention on Arvaarad in front of her. She tried to stop the tears from falling, but as they left the children’s area she felt them start to roll down her cheek.


	2. I Will Do as I'm Told

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If I have any translations wrong, then let me know the correct translations so I can learn please.

Five Years Later (Age 8)

Saarebas had finally finished her training with Arvaarad, despite the rigorousness of the training, she learned to trust him. He was a good man and always gave her time to process what he was explaining to her. She finished her training and she had heard some of the other sten around saying that she was the fastest learner that they had seen. She had read every book she could get her hands on and Arvaarad had helped her acquire more than she would have been able to on her own.

She woke at her normal time and waited for the guards to come and open her cell door for her Arvaarad when he came to remove her bindings. Saarebas weren’t allowed to sleep unrestrained for fear of demon possession. The bindings were meant to give their guards enough time to kill them before they hurt anyone. The guard at the door to her cell never looked at her when she woke up, but after five years she knew that the guards knew when she woke up. Saarebas had always woken up about fifteen minutes before they let Tamavaraad release her bindings. She used that time to review material she had read the previous night.

It hadn’t been easy, but Arvaarad had taught her to read and he treated her with sympathy. Try as he might he couldn’t have delayed this day, she was too good. She had begun to sense his trepidation about her leaving into the care of another Arvaarad. Whenever he had seen her look of concerned confusion he told her it was just the inevitability of life. She had scowled at him and went back to her lessons.

This morning began differing the moment Viddasala stepped through her cell door. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw her sneer down at Saarebas in contempt, “You have advanced enough to be sent out, so you will be re-assigned a new Arvaarad. He will come to get you when he is ready for you.” Without further explanation Viddasala turned on her heel and walked out of her cell. As always whenever Viddasala came to see Saarebas, she watched the tail the swished behind the Viddasala. She had wanted to ask someone about it, but she couldn’t talk. She turned to her books and could find no explanation for it. Saarebas had always pushed it out of her mind until she saw the woman again. Then her questions and theories would run rampant through her mind until she left.

Saarebas wondered at kind of person her new Arvaarad would be. She waited for what seemed hours and she felt the urge to relieve herself grew as time went by. She looked around worriedly and listened for any sign that her new Arvaarad was coming. She was so hungry and wondered what had gone wrong, she was sure Tamavaarad would be here any minute to take care of her. He wouldn’t just abandon her, but as the hours ticked by she felt her betrayal begin to bloom in her heart, he had left her. All the looks of concern over the years began to look mocking and she felt her eyes narrowing and tears forming from the pain that she couldn’t stop. She breathed deeply through her nose and as her betrayal turned to anger, she felt the guard shifting nervously. She glared at him through her bars, he didn’t care about her. Not really. None of them did, at least the Viddasala seemed to be honest about her feelings.

Her anger helped her to forget about the burning need to relieve herself for a time, but eventually she could not hold herself any longer. It seemed as though the moment she had relieved herself, the door to her cell finally opened and there stood a tall man whose horns swooped around his ears, almost making them look like cinnamon rolls that had been given to her as a child. “What, they have to give me the defective one? I thought they said you were the best Saarebas they had trained, couldn’t even wait four hours for me to come get you.”

He then strode into her cell and backhanded her across her face, “Well, I suppose I have to clean you up now. I guess I’ll just have to retrain you, my little Saarebas.” Tears had formed from his hit and he began to laugh at her. He undid her restraints before hauling her after him. He led her through the cells and up the hallway. People were everywhere they went, some laughed at the display, some looked away in shame. As her new Arvaarad led her through the Saarebas complex, she heard her old Arvaarad’s voice. She kept her eyes staring blankly ahead of her.

“Are you insane?! I give you the best Saarebas that the Qun has seen in years and you give her to Meravas. Go figure, so tell me Viddasala, how was the sex?” He sounded angry, but why would he? He had abandoned her to the figure that walked before her.

“Remember to whom you are speaking Hissrad, oh, oops, slip of the tongue.” there was a pause before she continued, “the assigning of the Saarebas is my duty. Or maybe you need another trip to the re-educators, because I can arrange that.”

“As you wish Viddasala,” she could hear the anger held back in his voice though she doubted Viddasala did. She was still confused as to the reason for his anger, other than the threat of Re-educators. They moved out of range for Saarebas to hear any more of their conversation and her new Arvaarad roughly threw her into a tub of freezing water. She clenched her jaw tight to keep her teeth from chattering behind her sewn lips.

“Clean yourself of your mess, Saarebas,” his tone was as cold as the water around her. She went to work quickly and pulled her soaking clothes from her body and cleaned herself quickly and thoroughly as she could before she looked to see her new Arvaarad watching her with detached disgust. She moved to get out of the bath before he pushed her back into the water so roughly she hit her head on the bottom of the tub, thankfully the water had softened the blow or she might have lost consciousness. Saarebas came back up to the surface sputtering as well as she was able with her lips. She saw the slight upturn of his lips, as if he thought it was funny that she had nearly gotten hurt, then again he had smacked her face earlier.

“I don’t want to see your disgusting body, put those clothes back on before you come out,” she looked at the edge of the tub, looking for the clothes he was talking about before she realized he intended for her to put her soaking wet and soiled clothes back on. She shuddered at the thought and began to do as she was told, but used the soap to clean her clothes before putting them back on. Her new Arvaarad watched her and she ignored him completely until she was done. His only other option would be to walk her out there naked, and she knew people would speak up about that. There was a difference between discipline and abuse afterall.

When she was done she dripped onto the floor around her and looked at him, waiting for him to lead her. He led her to the dining hall, he never said a word to her but she knew where they were heading from the familiar path that they took. He never explained where they were going to her or what he was doing, she supposed that was what it was like for all Saarebas once they were done with their training.

They arrived and he roughly sat her down as he went to get her food, she made sure to look down at her feet and to not look around. However, she did watch everything from the corner of her eyes as she had learned with her previous Arvaarad. Her new Arvaarad came back with her mostly liquid food and Arvaarad haphazardly waved the spoon in the general direction of her mouth. Her food slopped down her chin with every spoonful and when he said they were done eating, she had actually eaten maybe half her bowl. Again, she made no sound of protest, this is what life would be like with him. She knew there was nothing she could do about her situation and resigned herself to suffering in silence.

“Ugh, maybe we should have waited until after eating to bathe you, you’re such a sloppy eater,” he seemed to blame her for his shortcomings, and since she couldn’t speak. His treatment of her would never be known outside the two of them, she kept her eyes on the floor and refused to meet his eyes. She felt the telltale prickle of tears at her eyes and glared down at the floor, she would not cry over this either. If he saw her crying she had a feeling that he would react just as the Viddasala had three years ago. She still had the scar in her right side where Viddasala had stabbed her for crying. She had nearly torn her mouth stitches when she cried out. She still bore the burn on her back where the Viddasala had branded her. Her tongue bore the scar from that.

He roughly led her back down the hallway to the bathhouse again and they repeated the process they had done earlier, however this time there were clean clothes waiting on the edge of the tub when she was done. She dressed herself in silence and only when she was done did she look at Arvaarad, he looked bored as he led her out to the courtyard, “Alright little Saarebas, let’s see what your other Arvaarad was talking about. Burn the dummy to the left.”

Her eyes finally moved to the dummy he was speaking of and extended her arm, her magic leapt to her command and the dummy burst into flames all over. She could see him grin beside her, “Good, good, Freeze the dummy in the middle.”

Again, her eyes moved to the next dummy and moved her hand to point at it, it immediately froze solid, again he grinned at her, “Lightning to the last dummy.”

Her eyes moved to the last dummy and her hand moved with her eyes, immediately lightning crackled along the wooden dummy. It had rained the night before and she could hear the sizzling of the wood a moment before it exploded. She saw a wooden chunk flying towards her new Arvaarad and she immediately threw up a barrier to protect him.

He looked to her, fury in his eyes, “You will never use your magic without my permission, understand?” Pain erupted all over her that emanated from her collar. It felt as if her magic were ripping her body apart one little piece at a time, it was the most excruciating pain she had ever experienced. Her previous Arvaarad had used it as a disciplinary tool, but she hadn’t given him much reason to use it. Her eyes glared at the ground before her, if he was going to hurt her for using her mind, then so be it. She fell to the ground and hugged her arms to herself. She kept her head bowed as tears welled in her eyes, she refused to let them fall and even after the pain had dissipated she kept kneeling, waiting for his command.

“Good, I think you understand that lesson now, get up! We’re going to test your healing,” she got up as quickly as she could and followed him as he led to to the other side of the courtyard. Once there he ordered her to heal the person lying on the table, she looked into the face of the person and saw the face of her Tama. Her heart pounded in her chest and she quickly moved her hands into place and healed her. It looked as if she had been tortured, many bones had been broken and she could tell that Tama was bleeding inside her body. She looked worriedly at her Tama and touched her forehead to her Tama’s.

Her back arched in sudden pain and she fell to her knees once again, “you are Saarebas, you are a tool, nothing else. You do not have feelings, or do I need to get some Saar Qamek?” Her teeth clenched in fear at the mention of the drug. Saar Qamek was used for the Saarebas who were hopeless cases and were forced to lose their minds. “No? That doesn’t sound appealing to you? Then stay standing when I punish you.”

She scrambled to her feet despite the pain that pulsed throughout her body. Once she stood on her feet, the pain stopped, “You will remain standing when I punish you, understand?” Pain pulsed through her body again and her knees shook, but she remained standing as she nodded.

“Good Saarebas, now you are to help me torture this Tal-Vashoth,” she hid her confusion as she stood at the ready to attack her Arvaarad until she looked down at her Tama. The pride she saw in her Tama’s eyes was unnerving, her Tama nodded her head and looked at her with such love and acceptance that her worries came back to the forefront of her mind. Why were they calling her Tama, Tal-Vashoth? What did Tal-Vashoth mean? She looked back at her Arvaarad and saw that he had pulled a dagger from his belt.

“Do not heal the wound I’m about to make,” she looked at him confused until he stabbed the dagger into her Tama. Her Tama screamed at the pain of the intrusion into her abdomen and he twisted the dagger in her insides. He removed the dagger and watched to make sure she didn’t heal the area.

“Good, little Saarebas. Now, Tal-Vashoth bitch, you will tell us how many of your children you have corrupted. Saarebas, heal the wound I just made, but do not heal the next one.” She winced as her magic moved around the next stab and moved to heal the previous one.

“I have only ever served the Qun, told the stories I was meant to and assigned each child to their jobs,” her Tama sobbed and she looked at her Tama sympathetically.

“Ah, but you see. You are lying, you didn’t report this Saarebas as soon as you knew she was Saarebas, same as before Saarebas.” His dagger was then embedded into her Tama’s stomach again and she moved her magic around as she was told. “You also lied when asked how old this Saarebas was, you told us five years when she was only three! Again Saarebas!” He began shouting at her Tama, her magic moved again and she fought the tears that fell down her face.

"She should have died, but now you will, Saarebas heal her completely.” Arvaarad stepped back and began cleaning his dagger. Saarebas felt tears falling down her face at Arvaarad and Tama’s words, her mind worked a mile a minute at the possible meaning of what was said just now.

“Don’t cry child,” her tama whispered to her, “Ar lath ma da'len, to ama ma dea deal de den Mythal's ju.” She looked at her Tama, confused. “Remember my words my little Ataashi.”

She nodded as her Arvaarad came up again, “is she healed?”

She nodded and ceased her magic over her Tama, “Good, now you will burn her until she is ash.”

She looked to her Arvaarad, horrified. She saw only hardness in his face and turned to look back at her Tama, she only saw love in her Tama’s eyes as her Tama nodded and smiled. She extended her hand and flames erupted all over her Tama’s body. No screams were heard and out of the corner of her eye she saw Arvaarad, no for this he is Dathrasi, grinning and she turned up the heat of her flames. She could feel the heat begin to blister her own skin, but when Dathrasi took a step back from her mini pyre, she made no move to do so. Finally she saw her Tama’s chest cave in on itself and the stench made her stomach roll unpleasantly. Still she did not move nor let up on the flames.

Dathrasi was laughing in the background and she heard Viddasala come up next to him, “I see you have assessed her. Shall we send her to Seheron?”

“Oh, yes Viddasala, she will do wonderfully in Seheron. Enough Saarebas, she is ash.” She lowered her arms and watched as the flames immediately went out, the ashes of her Tama then blew in the breeze that suddenly whipped through the courtyard. She turned and Dathrasi saw that the entire front of her body that wasn’t covered by cloth was red and blistered, her clothes were black with the ash of her Tama and Dathrasi laughed again with Viddasala.

“Alright, little Saarebas, you are going to war. Arvaarad, don’t have her heal her blisters, it will serve as a reminder to not stand too close to the fire,” she laughed and walked away. Saarebas saw the tail and this time her mind’s theories did not float across her mind, nothing did. No one was there to care for her, her Tama’s wish was for her to survive, and so survive she would. No matter the cost.

“As you wish, Kadan,” Dathrasi whispered to himself as he watched her leave him looking after her longingly. She moved her eyes to the ground when he turned to look at her, “you heard her, we’re going to Seheron. You will obey every order I give you to the letter, and you may survive that hellhole.”

He ordered for her to follow him and she did so as she felt the emptiness from that morning grow inside her. She followed him through hallway after hallway and down flights of stairs and she didn’t react when the floor beneath her feet went from stone to wood. She went up a ramp and was led down more stairs. “Kneel in the middle of your cell, Saarebas.”

Her feet moved to obey and as she kneeled she took note that she kneeled on a cushion of some sort. He moved her limbs into the familiar position of the sleeping bindings and left her in her cell. Only when she heard his footsteps walk up the stairs did she notice that she was alone and that the entire room seemed to sway, and her along with it. She went back to staring at the floor and was lost to her thoughts as she replayed the events of the day over and over in her mind until she fell asleep.

They were on the ship for exactly five days and Dathrasi would only come to let her relieve herself and to feed her every twelve hours. The swaying of the ship seemed to make his feedings worse and she barely ate any food. She was sure she was dying from the lack of food, but on the third day something had happened, one night as she was passing out from lack of food she saw her Tama. She knew she was seeing things, but if she were to die she wanted to see her Tama one last time.

“They have stolen the heart that’s inside you, but this does not define you. This is not who you are. You know who you are. Feel the magic around you, it is called the Fade. Listen to the whispers of the spirits around you, they will help you. Feed from the Fade and you will live,” with that she disappeared. She closed her eyes and expanded her senses, she felt the magic that leapt to her fingers. It was all around her and within her, she opened her eyes and saw another spirit.

“You need food, I can help, but I don’t know what kind of food you eat. I don’t know how you eat with your lips sewn shut. Oh, I see you get a broth,” he looked to be a human boy with yellow hair. He disappeared from her view without moving and she looked at the space where he was and waited for him to return. She didn’t know how she knew he would return, but eventually he did and it was a bowl of the best broth she had ever had. He fed it to her just as Tamavaarad had and he had shown up every so often ever since. The day came to depart and she stood strong on her legs despite the weakness she felt in them.

Dathrasi led her up the steps of the ship and she kept her eyes downcast as she followed him down and off the ship. Her legs wobbled again when the ground beneath her stopped moving but held herself upright as Dathrasi led her through pathways that led between many buildings on either side of her. They walked up to a large stone building and they were led through the building and up many sets of stairs before they stopped in a room. A large man with horns that jutted out from his head and then upwards like two posts that the children used in their games with the balls. He looked to Dathrasi and she made sure her eyes were kept to the ground as she listened to the conversation.

“So you’re the Arvaarad with the super Saarebas I’ve heard so much about. Isn’t she kind of young?”

“She completed her training in five years and was sent here by the Viddasala, she has proficiency with all magicks. We are at your disposal Hissrad,” Dathrasi spoke to the other man. She recognized the name Hissrad from Arvaarad’s conversation with Viddasala and wondered what this Hissrad was like. Would he befriend and abandon her too?

“Damn, kiddo, you must be pretty impressive,” he grinned at her and Dathrasi looked at him annoyed.

“Where will I be staying?”

Hissrad looked at Dathrasi disappointedly, “Saarebas and Arvaarad to be stationed with Hissrad to the Northern Encampment, Fort Pyrite.” he sounded like he had read it from a report, but he held no paper before him, “we will travel together in the morning to our post. For tonight we will stay here in the fort, there’s a cell prepared for Saarebas in the basement and once we get her settled I’ll show you your quarters.”

She followed them as they led her down flights of stairs and continued to keep her eyes to the ground as she listened. “So how old is she?”

“Ten years,” she wondered why he was lying to the liar and watched Hissrad’s reaction. He knew Dathrasi was lying, but didn’t say anything.

“And she’s already completed Saarebas training? Shit, she’s younger than I expected.”

Dathrasi’s tone turned smug, “yes, the Viddasala hand picked for me to be her Arvaarad. She expects Saarebas and I to turn this hellhole completely over to the Qun.”

“MmmHmm. How long is your assignment to Seheron?”

“Viddasala said ten years, we’ll see which comes first, Victory or time,” he smiled at Hissrad and Hissrad smiled back at him. She saw the the smile didn't reach his eyes and felt like she would like Hissrad, despite her initial apprehension, she felt a sort of pull towards him that she couldn’t explain. They led her down into the bowels of the building and she smelled the familiar scent of earth as they passed below the surface. Hissrad stood back and watched as Dathrasi roughly put her into her sleeping bindings. He quickly left her cell and waited impatiently as Hissrad made sure she was comfortable on her cushion, she smiled at him and nodded her thanks as he left.

After a few hours Hissrad returned into her view, “I want to ask you questions, but I don’t want Arvaarad to know, can you do that?”

She raised an eyebrow at him and nodded her confirmation, he laughed at her and she felt comfortable with him. “So are you younger than what he told me?”

She swallowed and nodded, “8 years?” Nod. “Shit, and to be stuck with a guy like that, I’m sorry kiddo, I really am. I gotta go, but I’ll try to visit whenever I can. I can’t arouse suspicion though so…” He stopped talking when he saw her nod understandingly. He shook his head sadly as he walked away.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "I love you my child, to protect you was Mythal’s will." is what her Tama tells her.


	3. Of Dathrasi and Hissrad

Three Years Later (Age 11)

The last three years progressed much as her Tama’s death had, always stepping away from the flames, always remembering her Tama’s wishes that she survive. Dathrasi turned out to be smarter than she had initially figured. He realized within 6 months that she was killing her victims very quickly and not torturing them to the fullest extent that she could. Eventually the pain became a reminder that she was her own person and so long as she followed orders, no one could complain. Dathrasi learned to be more specific with his instructions when torturing victims.

Next he learned to be specific with his healing orders concerning others. He had ordered her to heal Hissrad after a particularly bloody battle, he had intended for her to heal the man’s broken leg so he could walk to the healers. However, all he had said was ‘Heal him, Saarebas.’ She had rendered herself unconscious from the sudden flood of healing magic that she unleashed to Hissrad. He was healed completely and carried her back to her cell in the camp. She had woken up to Dathrasi causing her the worst pain yet, Hissrad began arguing with him. Before Hissrad had gotten him to stop a grin had begun to form on her lips. Her limbs were twitching from the need to writhe, but years of this treatment had rendered her muscles to automatically lock her limbs in place when she felt her ‘punishment.’

Dathrasi learned to be specific with his attack orders. He had once ordered her to ‘attack’ a large squadron of Tal-Vashoth that were heading directly for them. It had been just the two of them as they had been separated from their squad. He ordered her attack and she had looked at him with such a dead look that had it not been for the intelligence shining in her eyes, he would have thought her dead. She kept her eyes focused on him as she extended her hand and send a multitude of shining balls of magic that made such a tiny explosion that the Tal-Vashoth laughed as they continued their approach. Finally, he ordered her to kill them and she sent tiny balls of magic once again, only this time the balls of magic hovered at the mouths of each Tal-Vashoth warrior before them. Then all at once the balls of magic forced themselves into the mouths of each an every warrior. Finally, as one the balls of magic exploded and Dathrasi looked to her in horror.

The final lesson he had yet to learn was to be specific when ordering her to heal him. Fort Pyrite was under Tal-Vashoth attack. She had learned that when she cast spells as a part of a group, that she could feel the other Saarebas around her. There were only four other Saarebas, but she could feel their struggles, even from the other side of the fort from them. She used her magic to ease their connection to the Fade. Dathrasi hadn’t used the rod, he hadn’t noticed yet. She then decided to try forming fireballs closer to her other Saarebas, as if they had cast the spell instead of her and still no pain radiated from her collar. She kept a close eye on Hissrad and healed and protected him as subtly as she could. Dathrasi however had been mortally wounded at least four time over by some well aimed arrows that may or may not have have been aided by her magic.

After hours of battle she finally steered one arrow enough that it went through Dathrasi’s throat and he was no longer able to order her to heal him. She kept her other magics at work and calmly walked over to him as he gurgled his last sounds. His eyes narrowed at her as if just now realized how much she was actually doing with her magic. Her taunting smirk was short lived as pain erupted from her collar. Her body locked in place, crouched before his recently deceased corpse. She ground her teeth as she struggled to stay conscious. She felt something snap within her as the pain seemed to morph into something else, more like a release. She felt her body relax into the pain and she had to squeeze her lips together so that she wouldn’t scream.

It felt like she was watching someone else as she picked up the control rod from Dathrasi’s corpse. She calmly walked out to where Hissrad had been fighting at the gates and handed him the control rod, the pain was still activated. Hissrad watched her in shock along with everyone else in the fort as she walked just outside the gate and clapped her hands together before her. Wind suddenly rushed through the fort and though the members of the Qun felt the wind, the Tal-Vashoth enemies were all picked up and placed before the Saarebas at the gates.

Once her prey were all gathered before her she knelt and slapped her hand to the earth and the Tal-Vashoth enemies were all engulfed in flames so hot that they didn’t have a chance to scream before they were turned to ash. The enemy dead and her allies safe, she fell to the ground and was unconscious before she hit the ground.

She awoke next in her cell beneath the fort with Hissrad sitting in a stool before her. She quickly found that all she could move was her head and upon looking around she saw four Sten surrounding her with their swords ready to plunge into her bound body. She turned her attention back to Hissrad.

“Your Arvaarad is dead.” There was no question in his voice, so she waited for it. “Did you kill him?” She heard one of the soldiers around her shift nervously. “No one here would blame you if you did, everyone here has seen the way he has treated you and we were seriously pissed off about it. So I’ll ask again, Did you kill your Arvaarad.”

She lowered her head to the ground in thought before she slowly rose her head to look him in the eye. She shook her head, but Hissrad doubted the look in her eye.

“Did your actions aid in his death?” Her eyes narrowed at him. They were all quiet for what felt like forever before she slowly nodded her head. Hissrad leaned forward and rested his elbows on his knees and placed his hands under his chin.

“I see, then you should be killed right here and now,” his eyes bore into hers and it was only then that a flicker of fear crossed her eyes. She knew she couldn’t protect herself so soon after using that much magic. Her life rested in Hissrad’s hands. She closed her eyes so he would not see more fear, she would fail her Tama’s wishes. All because she couldn’t stand a little pain. She felt disgusted with herself for a moment before a new thought crossed her mind. Why hadn’t he given the order yet?

She opened her eyes to see Hissrad regarding her carefully. She took a deep breath and looked at him resolutely. She was going to trust him, if he had wanted her dead, then he would have ordered them to kill her.

“There’s just one snag in the plan to kill you,” he leaned back in his chair, “We all owe you our lives. With everyone else dead, I’m left in charge of this fort. That means I have to decide whether to kill you or ship you back.” He pretended to think for a moment before he saw that she wasn’t buying it. He grinned at her and the men around her left her cell. “I’m thinking that you handed me your control rod because you want me to be your new Arvaarad?”

She looked at him with a withered look, he laughed as if he understood her patronizing thoughts. He smiled at her, “alright, let’s get you taken care of then.” He rose and opened her cell before he gently removed her restraints. He had her walk beside him as they walked to the kitchens, she sat in the chair that he pulled out for her to sit in and fed her carefully. It was the most wonderful broth she had ever had and he made sure she had every sip. She hoped that this would last forever, but she couldn’t shake the feeling that he too would betray her, just as the first Hissrad had done.


	4. The Cost of Freedom

One Year Later (Age 12)

Hissrad quickly found out how bull headed his new ward was. When she wanted something, she was patient enough to get it. It had started as a random curiosity.  _ What was it like to cast magic? _ He knew he had been in trouble when she had grinned devilishly, the look made all the more disturbing by the thread that laced her lips. She had all but opened her lips and ordered him to get her books to read. Over the course of six months they spent requisitioning books and learning to read each other. A year later in battle he knew something was wrong when her spell casting slowed in the middle of combat and he began having to shout at her two or three times before she would follow the order.

She had miraculously managed to not get hit by anything till close to the end of the battle. However, as soon as the arrow embedded itself in her calf, she came out of the stupor she had been in for the majority of the battle. Battle ended quickly after that and Hissrad walked next to her as they made their way back to the fort.

“What the hell was that?”

Saarebas shrugged her shoulders and looked to the ground with a careful, blank face. When she did not look up not attempt to communicate further, he stopped her and looked into her eyes. He saw in the depths of her eyes a fear carefully concealed.  _ Did what just happen scare her into herself? And just what the hell was that? She hadn’t really responded to anything until she had gotten...hurt. The pain of the arrow must have shocked her out of whatever that was. _

‘What the hell was that’ indeed.

Hissrad led them back to the fort in silence after that, he would need to talk with her in private, figure this thing out together. They were welcomed with jovial waves and pats on the back. Saarebas at his Side didn’t wave back to any of them.

“Hey, Hissrad! Get your ass over here and join us!” a jovial shout was called out.

“Sorry guys, Side Arm’s tired and needs her rest,” Saarebas’ kept low, her eyes blankly forward.

“Side Arm, huh? After all this time and you go with Side Arm?” another voice called from the crowd.

“Well, she’s always at my side and always within arms reach, so Side Arm.” Hissrad watched as money exchanged hands subtly among his men. He grinned at them good naturedly, “see you guys tomorrow.”

Side Arm hadn’t moved since he had stopped to talk to his men, and the fact that she hadn’t reacted to her new nickname told him a few things. He took quick stock of her eyes and saw them following his every move in a sort of detached watchfulness. He knew her focus was elsewhere and hadn’t yet processed what she had just witnessed. It was amazing what one could learn just by watching facial expressions. Without any other way for her to communicate with anyone else, Hissrad had made sure to study every feature of her young face so he could ‘hear’ her.

She knew they needed to talk and he knew that depending on how they handled this could set her future. He knew this was a pivotal moment for the child before him. A great sadness gripped him as that thought crossed his mind. He turned his face away from her view to hide his sadness as he led the way to her cell in the basement. This was her safe area, her turf. For whatever reason he saw that she felt comfortable in this small area.

She walked into her cell and knelt on her cushion. She brought her knees up and hugged them to her chest and looked at Hissrad with the fear in her eyes. He swallowed past the lump that had formed in his throat. In that one look he knew the source of her fear. The unknown.

_ ‘What brought me back?’  _ She hadn’t even known what had brought her out of her stupor. Hissrad looked down at her leg. She followed his line of sight and gaped at the arrow neatly lodged in her leg with blood running down her leg. Suddenly she became aware of a delicious ache in her leg. She closed her eyes and realized the source of the ache was the arrow currently in her leg. Her eyes opened wide once again. That was not normal.

Her hands shook as they drifted towards the arrow and just as they were about to grasp the arrow, Hissrad’s hands were there. She looked up at him in surprise.

“Heal yourself as soon as it’s out.” His eyes bore into hers and she found herself nodding to his order.They kept their eyes locked as he snapped the end of the arrow off and pulled it out. The pain washed over her and as she whimpered at the pain she fought to remember that Hissrad had told her to heal her leg. She was so confused.  _ Why was pain affecting her like this? Why did she suddenly want to feel more?  _ Goosebumps appeared all over her body as she shivered to herself.

Hissrad looked down at her in concern, “that’s enough!” her eyes snapped to his at his commanding tone. “You need pain to keep your wits about you, fine. It’s what you need, so you’ll tell me when you start feeling like you were before that battle.”

He looked at her so fiercely that without a second thought as to whether he would betray her, she nodded her agreement. He nodded his agreement and set to examining how well she had healed her leg. Now that she was paying attention, she could see that he was thinking of something as he examined her perfectly fine leg. When it became obvious that he wasn’t going to start the conversation, she placed a hand on his shoulder. He looked up and in his eyes she saw how lost he was, he wanted to help her, he just didn’t know how.

_ ‘Let’s look at the facts first.’ _

He nodded numbly, “well, you went into kind of a stupor and you weren’t casting your magic like normal until you got hurt. Logically that means that something was happening within you until the pain brought you out. What was happening?”

_ ‘It felt like I was drowning. There was so much going on around me, but I felt more and more detached from what was happening around me.’ _

“So the pain kept you from drowning,” he turned thoughtful for a long time until he looked her in the eyes. “You need pain to keep you here. When you start to feel it coming, you tap my hip. Then I’ll use the rod to cause you pain. If it ever gets to be too much, you are to tap your leg twice.”

He looked at her so somberly, she knew that this was not a normal case. No other Saarebas had to deal with this. She made sure to nod her understanding and agreement before looking at him worriedly.

_ ‘Why is this happening? What’s going on?’ _

She saw his hands twitch as if he wanted to hold her. Her bindings were not attached to her and no one else was in the cell. She looked around them for a moment before she crawled herself to plop into Hissrad’s lap. He felt rigid and stiff from finding himself with a lap full of Saarebas. After a few minutes of her wrapping herself in his arms, he felt her breathing begin to even out and before he could stop her, she was asleep.

He had always been told stories of Saarebas who were taken over by demons in their sleep. He looked down at her peaceful face and as hard as he may try, he couldn’t imagine her being taken over by a demon. Her power was terrifying enough without this new development of needing pain. He sighed, she was just getting more and more complicated. Smiling softly down at her, he brushed some strands of Auburn hair from her forehead. He didn’t know how long he sat like that, but at some point in the night, long after the sun had set, he shifted her off of him. She woke and looked at him startled until she realized it was him.

He cradled her head in his hands and looked into her sleepy eyes, “You are never to harm yourself. Understand? If I’m not nearby, you find me and I’ll give you what you need.”

She sleepily nodded her agreement and if he didn’t know any better, he could have sworn he heard a whisper of ‘Survive and don’t harm myself.’ He looked sharply down at the girl in his arms and saw that she was passed out in his arms again. He carefully placed her within her bindings and once he was finished he sat in the ever present chair before her cell. He stared at her thoughtfully through the night and when she awoke the next morning it appeared as if whatever coping mechanism she needed she got. The next morning she was back to her usual self.

After that night, Hissrad noticed that she needed the pain to bring her back at least once a month. It made him wonder how she had made it their first year together without an incident happening sooner than it had. He knew that she needed more from him than the other Saarebas and he was worried for their future.  _ What if he couldn’t give her everything she needed? _ That thought would haunt him for years to come.


	5. Tal-Ataashi

Four Years Later (Age 16)

She knew this was going to be a troublesome day the moment the word ‘dragon’ was whispered through camp. The happy gleam in Hissrad’s eyes didn’t help any as they listened to the camp whisper excitedly about facing a dragon today. They had been tracking the beast from the western village to the caves that littered the foot of the mountain. Finally they had it cornered in one cave and they were licking their wounds before finishing the job. 

“Today is a good day! Today is a  _ very _ good day!” Hissrad told her excitedly, though she doubted that he really cared who he was talking to at the moment.

She could have smiled at his childlike excitement over facing a dragon if not for the restriction on her lips. Instead Hissrad grinned at the smile in her eyes. She moved her eyes to flit over the rest of the squad that had been gathered to face the dragon. Hissrad wasn’t the only one eagerly anticipating facing the dragon. She couldn’t help the feeling that something was off, she kept feeling like she was missing something, some nagging feeling that only added to her pre-existing feelings of not quite belonging. 

Her gaze fell to the three other Saarebas, they couldn’t have too many mages in one area, but with Seheron being a veritable war-zone they needed at least four Saarebas to hold the fort they had. The Saarebas tended to steer clear of eachother, but none were more avoided than her, only Hissrad and he troops he was directly in charge of felt comfortable around her. She was grateful that there were so few Saarebas, their magic tended to leave a sour taste in her mouth. 

***

The cave stank of rotting corpses as they passed through the entrance. She embodied her nickname as she stuck close to Hissrad. With a look from Hissrad, she summoned her magic and made a soft light along the ground so that the troops wouldn’t trip over their own feet in the darkness. Just before they entered the main chamber of the cave, she heard a voice. 

“So hungry, if it weren’t for the tasty Druffalo, I would have left long ago,” the voice was deep and guttural. It sounded as if there were some extra noises when he spoke, but she signaled for Hissrad to stop for a moment as she peeked around the corner. She saw the large Dragon nestled on top of piles of Druffalo corpses. She stared in shock as the voice spoke again.

“I smell intruders,” the voice was coming from the dragon, “I suppose I’ll just have to eat them before returning to my feast.” 

She blinked in shock and had no idea how long she stood there until Hissrad nudged her and looked at her worriedly. She shook her head and moved back into position, still in shock.

“Something wrong with Saarebas? Boss?” one Sten asked. 

Hissrad looked at her out of the corner of his eye and silently asked her. ‘You okay?’

Slowly she nodded that she was fine to continue, but signaled that the dragon knew they were there.

“How do you- you know what? I don’t want to know.” He whispered at her in shock. The troops behind them, used to them talking silently, collectively rolled their eyes. “Alright, we round the corner and scatter around. Don’t clump together, it’ll just get you killed and take others with you. Ready? GO!” 

With a roar Hissrad led the way around the corner and would have burnt to a crisp had Side Arm not placed her barriers around him. He was forever grateful that she had a head for strategy and despite what he had been taught about Saarebas that would think for themselves. He had heard stories of renegade Saarebas losing control and killing all those around them. Side Arm was different. She not only thought for herself, but he was sure that she was drawing battle plans on his maps when she thought he wasn’t paying attention. He knew it went against everything he had been taught about Saarebas, but he trusted her.

The battle seemed to be over as soon as it began, yet at the same time lasted forever. Hissrad looked over the Sten and noted that there were only a handful of corpses. He turned his attention back to Side Arm and saw that she was nearing the dying dragon. He watched, frozen as Side Arm stopped a Sten from delivering the finishing blow and placed her hand on the dragon’s maw. The creature gave a shuddering breath and Hissrad felt like he was made of stone as he watched light swirl away from the dragon and into Side Arm. 

“Dovahkiin,” seemed to whisper across the cave from somewhere.

Hissrad snapped out of his shock when Side Arm suddenly collapsed unconscious. He rushed forward and barely made it in time to catch her before she hit the ground. He bit the inside of his cheek to keep his features schooled away from the worry and turmoil he felt inside. He took a deep shuddering breath and noticed the scents of the cave had shifted. The scent of ‘dragon’ seemed to permeate around and from the mage in his arms. 

_ What have I gotten myself into with you? _ Hissrad thought, not for the first time, that the mage in his arms was going to be the death of him.

“No Sten here will betray her, she’s saved all our lives more times than we can count, Hissrad.” He was ashamed to admit it, even to himself, that he had been terrified from the moment she collapsed. Not for himself, not even at her power, he was terrified someone was going to send a message to Par Vollen and reveal everything. He felt something shift within him, he had to protect her. He had to make sure she never saw Par Vollen again, for if she did...Hissrad shuddered at the thought of it. He didn’t even let him think of the possibilities of what would happen to her.


	6. Tal-Vashoth

Two years Later (Age 18)

She had seen it in his eyes the moment they had seen the devastation of the poison. Ten years in this place and she thought she had seen the worst that people could do. Oh, how wrong she was. The Tal-Vashoth rebels had crossed a new line, it was one thing to attack adults (at least adults could fight back) but children? What kind of depraived monster went after children? She turned to Hissrad, the man that had come to know her so well that they hardly felt the need to communicate verbally anymore. She started at the look in his eyes however, there was a barely restrained rage behind his eyes.

“Side Arm,” she could hear the pain in his voice and she moved closer to his side offering her silent comfort. Once she was at his side, she felt more than saw his shoulders loose a minute amount of tension, as if her presence at his side reassured him that she was okay and not one of the kids laid out before them. She knew how easy it would have been for her and Hissrad to be present at the time of the poisoning and killing them as well. She watched him for a long time before he narrowed his eyes at the scene before him and finally turned to start barking orders at those around them. She could feel the anger rolling off of Hissrad in waves, he needed information, he needed a target. 

***

The Tal-Vashoth fortress came into view, they were just supposed to be the forward scouting party. She knew, however, the moment Hissrad had snapped. They had heard the Tal-Vashoth camp laughing and boasting about the poisoning of the orphanage. That one sent Hissrad into a rage. Oddly enough it was Gatt that was the voice of reason this time.

“Come on, Hissrad! They outnumber us, let’s just go and get the rest of the squad,” Gatt looked at him imploringly. He turned his face to hers, expressionless to those around him, but she knew what he was saying. She nodded her head in silent agreement. She would follow him wherever he led her. She was his ‘Side Arm’ she was important to him. 

“Kay, you guys go on ahead back to camp and bring the rest of the troops, I’ll stay here with Side Arm in case anything changes,” Hissrad’s commanding voice finally flowed among them, but Gatt noticed that Hissrad’s eyes never left hers. He knew they were having one of their ‘silent conversations.’ Gatt had never liked Side Arm, not from day one. She may have been there for his rescue, but he always felt like she held Hissrad’s attention. He hated her for that. She turned to look in his direction and he screwed his face up in a snarl at her. Of course she got to stay with him, Gatt felt the stirrings of his anger writhing within him. His gaze flickered to Hissrad and saw that Hissrad was angry, and it was directed at him.

“Get going, Gatt,” the anger in Hissrad’s voice terrified Gatt for a minute and suddenly he wasn’t so envious of Side Arm.

Hissrad looked into her eyes for a long time after the others had left before he stood and pulled his Great Axe from its place on his back. He rolled his shoulders and she drew her familiar energy around her. Suddenly they heard a scream. It was the missing Tamassran that had been taking care of the orphans. They could hear as the Tal-Vashoth argued over who was going to have their turn first. 

She felt it the moment Hissrad snapped. The rage was no longer able to be held back and he was gone. She followed him and kept close enough that she would be able to keep him safe with her shield, but far enough away that if he couldn’t differentiate her, then she had time to get out of his way. She kept the enemies off his back and blind spots from his rage. They kept trying to get to her, but she lashed her magic out to snuff their lives. She had known the moment that Hissrad had stormed the fortress, that none of the Tal-Vashoth would be leaving this event alive. 

It didn’t take long for all those in the fort to be dead, the Tal-Vashoth had quickly killed their Tamassran prisoner once Hissrad had burst through the doors. She had kept back, behind Hissrad to protect his blind side. Throughout the fortress she hadn’t feared him or his raw power. More than once she had caught a glimpse of him in the throws of battle and she had never seen anything more beautiful. She had felt her stomach clench and a warmth fill her belly every time she caught a glimpse of him. Her mouth would suddenly be dry at time, but in the middle of battle was not the time to figure out what was going on with her. 

The battle over, Side Arm took a step closer to Hissrad, until he turned his face towards her. He stared at her without seeing her and she stood still as she could as she waited for him to move. Her eyes stared into his and she saw the moment he came back to the surface and he collapsed onto a tree stump in the middle of the courtyard of the fortress.

She immediately made her way over to him and began healing him from the attacks she had missed, “You didn’t have to follow me.”

She looked at him with a raised eyebrow as if to say, ‘as if I would do anything else.’

“Yeah, yeah I know, but you still didn’t have to,” he looked out to see their reinforcements arriving and they went back to camp in silence. She walked beside Hissrad as usual and she knew something was wrong with him. She wanted to help him, but didn’t know what to do. She wished she could speak and say words of comfort to him. 

Once they entered their encampment she followed him silently as he led the familiar route to his tent, she had healed many wounds inside this tent. Would he ask her to heal his head? She didn’t think she would be able to do that. He pulled out her chair for her to sit in and lay her control rod on the table. He placed his hands on either side of it and stared down at it.

“I’m turning myself in to the Re Educators,” he spoke quietly and stood back up and began to walk past her, leaving her control rod on the table. She reached up and grasped his arm causing him to stop.

She looked up at him with worry, she had heard the other men talking about what that meant and what could happen to Hissrad. He had defied orders and here he was leaving her alone with her control rod. She opened her mouth as far as she could and whispered, “Hissrad.”

He stared at her and placed his hands on either side of her face. He touched his forehead to hers and took a deep breath, “I’m sorry, but I must, I can’t continue like this.”

With that he walked out of her life for who knows how long. She stared around at what had been her home for the last seven years, there were many good memories here. However, she knew that if she did not get moving, then she would be discovered by the rest of the camp. She knew that he had left the tent flap closed, so she knew she had a few minutes. After what seemed to be forever, she got up and stood before her control rod and the dagger he had left in the table. 

She had been there when Hissrad had first gotten it. On Seheron you had to use money with their bartering system, it had been a new concept to those from Par Vollen. Hissrad had seen the dagger in a blacksmith’s shop and he had bought the dawnstone dagger on a whim. She remembered catching him admiring the sunlight reflecting off the pink dagger. She heard some rustling outside the tent and quickly grabbed the rod and dagger from the table. She slipped her way out from under the outer wall of the tent. Sticking to the shadows, she made her way South away from the Qunari encampment. She didn’t stop heading south until the lights form the encampment were no longer visible to her. She turned her way east towards the coast and reached the coast just as the sun was peeking over the Horizon. 

She found a cave on the outskirts of the coastal town and set to work on the stitches around her mouth. She could feel the tiredness from being up and running all night long, but the quicker she got off this island, the less likely they were to find her and take her back to Par Vollen. Her hands slipped a few times because of her tiredness, causing more scars around her mouth and some on her hands. Once her mouth was finally freed she took a moment and stretched her jaw as wide as she could and winced from the pain of her jaw popping from lack of use. Finally her eyes began dropping and she knew there was nothing she could do to stop it this time, she settled herself in the deepest part of the cave and fell asleep. 

She awoke the next morning with a jolt of surprise. It took her a moment to realize where she was and what had happened the day before. She felt the prickle of tears and quickly blinked them away, it would do her no good to cry now. She shook herself off and turned to the mouth of the cave, only to find her way blocked by an elderly looking woman. The woman may have looked to be far too old to be wandering a cave so close to an active war zone, but she got the feeling that this woman could take care of herself.

“Ah, finally. I tell you what, you’re a hard one to track down, Holly,” the woman spoke to her, but she didn’t recognize the name that was spoken to her. The confusion must have been evident on her face because the woman started talking again. “Ah, it seems I’m just in time to explain a few things. First off, you can call me Flemeth.” 

She blinked owlishly at the woman in response. She had a feeling that the word explain should have been replaced with exploit or something like that.

“I am here to ensure that my investment t’was not wasted with you,” the tone Flemeth used was sweet and comforting, but her words made a chill run down Saarebas’ spine. She kept her gaze so focused on the woman before her, she failed to notice the mirror that had been set up behind where she stood.

“Alas, you are not yet strong enough for what you need to do, good luck,” with that the woman flung her arm out. Saarebas was hit with a wave of magic that made her fly backwards, right into the mirror that she had failed to notice earlier. She fell through the mirror and caught a glimpse of a place filled with mirrors before she fell through another mirror. She landed with a groan and looked up to see a group of soldiers surrounding her before darkness claimed her.


	7. The Wrath of Heaven: The Temple of Sacred Ashes

Two Years Later, Thedas Time

Her eyes blinked owlishly at her surroundings, not quite what she had expected when she returned to Thedas. She wasn’t dead, so that was something in the positive column. Despite the ring of soldiers surrounding her, she rested on her heels, seemingly at ease with the world. She ran through recent events in her mind. Some woman had tried to stop the ritual of which the woman had been a part of and as a result she now had a great green glowing gash in her left hand. She growled at herself, how could she have fallen for the same trick twice? She had just been leaving a cave that had been infested with vampires when she met up with the Flemeth woman again.

***

“Hello my dear,” the voice was familiar, but it had been so long since she had heard it that she couldn’t place it. “Ah, yes. You are most certainly strong enough my little Saarebas.”

Suddenly everything came back, the woman in her cave just after she had left Hissrad. She would have attacked Flemeth had she not realized that her hands were currently bound. She gathered her voice to herself and was about to Shout when she realized that a cloth gag covered her mouth, much like another’s had long ago.

“Mmmhmmm, mmmmm MMMMMMMM,” she struggled against her bindings, she had vowed to herself to never be helpless like that again. The woman stared down at her and watched with an air of amusement. She stopped and gathered her magic to her, but instead of the savory taste of the magic from Skyrim, she was met with the sour taste of magic from the Fade. Keeping one eye on the woman with her, she turned her attention inward and forced her inner magic forth. At last she had the savory taste of the magicka within her. 

All at once, it was as if a dam had broken loose and her inner magicka burst forth, blending with the magic from the Fade. She groaned at the sensation it caused and she lost track of the woman that had started all of her troubles in the first place. She had been doing just fine before that day in the cave. 

“You’re probably wondering as to my interest in you, little one. You see, your Tama was entrusted to keep you safe, but then I had no idea just how much magic would manifest in one so young. Almost makes me wonder how you came to be, at least, it would if i didn’t already know,” the woman chuckled to some joke with herself. 

Her only response to the woman was to glare at her from the ground as pain racked through her body, though by looking at her no one could tell just how much agony she was in. 

“Oh, I don’t think I ever told you my name, you may call me Flemeth,” the woman knelt down and looked her in the eyes. “Tell you what, little Saarebas, you promise not to Shout me off the hillside and I’ll take off he gag.”

Through her glare she nodded her agreement, there were more fun ways of getting what she wanted from this Flemeth. 

“Good,” nimble fingers pushed the gag down so it rested across her throat, “now I’m willing to bet that you didn’t go traipsing around Skyrim with a name like Saarebas, so why don’t you tell me what you call yourself now.”

Not trusting her anger to keep herself from Shouting the woman off the hillside despite her promise, she took a moment before she responded, “Seranni.”

***

So here she sat, on cold stone floor with a ring of soldiers pointing their weapons at her and a giant glowing green gash on her left hand flared brightly at her. The door leading up the stairs swung open and the soldiers put their swords away as two women walked into the room. One had a hood up over her head and helped to hide her face among the shadows, the other looked very much like a warrior and circled around behind her and spoke suddenly in her ear.

“Tell me why we shouldn’t kill you now,” the warrior’s timbre voice rang out in the silence of the dungeon. “The conclave is destroyed. Everyone who attended is dead. Except for you.”

Seranni remained silent as she stared at the floor in front of her, the warrior reached down and grasped her left hand, raising it to eye level, “Explain this.”

“I can’t,” was all she replied.

“What do you mean you can’t,” the warrior demanded of her.

“I mean, I don’t remember what happened. I was in a cave one minute and the next I’m running for my life from these creatures and a woman pushed me through a rift.”

Finally the hooded woman spoke, “a woman?”

The warrior woman narrowed her eyes at Seranni and spoke to the hooded woman, “go to the forward camp, Lelianna. I will take our prisoner up the mountain.”

“Be safe, Cassandra,” Seranni could tell that there was a level of camaraderie between the women and Lelianna left up the stairs as Cassandra helped her to her feet.

“So, what did happen?” she asked of her captor, curious as to whether or not her questions would be answered.

“It would be easier to show you,” Cassandra took off her metal bindings and Seranni immediately backed away and felt around on her person.

“Where are my things, I’m not going anywhere without my things,” the hardness in her voice made Cassandra pause and she watched as the warrior regarded her carefully before walking over to a nearby chest. She opened it and pulled out all of her weapons, she didn’t care about any of them except for two. She figured she would make the warrior a little more comfortable and only took Hissrad’s dagger and her control rod.

“You’re only taking those?”

“Figured you wouldn’t want a fully armed prisoner behind you,” she spoke distractedly as she strapped her control rod in it’s place on her leg.

“How thoughtful of you,” she could hear the sarcasm in Cassandra’s voice as they walked out of the dungeon.

“I’m just considerate like that,” she quipped back and she saw a smirk grace the warrior’s face for a moment before they walked through the large doors of the Chantry. Seranni finally got her first look at the aftermath of what had happened, her eyes widened in disbelief.

“We call it the Breach, it’s a massive rift into the world of demons that grows larger with each passing hour. It is not the only such rift, just the largest. All were caused by the explosion at the conclave,” Cassandra explained to her.

“Well, shit,” was all she could say. It looked like a giant green hole in the sky that threatened to eat the sky whole. Pain erupted from her left hand, from her new mark, and though she remained standing she still grimaced and held her hand to her side.

“Each time the Breach expands, your marks spread...and it is killing you,” Cassandra looked at her with concern, “your mark may be the key to stopping this, but there isn’t much time.”

She stared at the Breach for a long moment before turning to Cassandra, “If I can help, then I will do all I can.”

“Then? Very well, thank you,” Cassandra turned on her heel and led her through the town, “they have decided your guilt. They need it. The people of Haven mourn our Most Holy, Divine Justinia, head of the Chantry. The Conclave was hers. It was a chance for peace between mages and templars. She brought their leaders together. Now, they are all dead.”

Soldiers opened the gates at the edge of the town and they began their trek up the mountain, Seranni resigned herself to following Cassandra and listening to her as they walked. She began to use her inner Magicka to essentially ‘poke’ at the gash on her hand. 

“We lash out, like the sky, but we must think beyond ourselves, as she did. Until the Breach is sealed at least. There will be a trial, I can promise you no more than that, let’s go. We will test your mark on something smaller than the Breach.”

Cassandra led the way up the mountain and the Breach flared out once more on their path before they reached a bridge that was destroyed as soon as they stepped onto it. A giant green rock crashed into the bridge, sending both women flying onto the frozen pond that had been beneath the bridge. Cassandra moved to attack one shade that had formed in front of them, but she didn’t see the shade that had appeared behind her. Seranni reached out her will and froze the shade before lighting her dagger on fire and stabbing the frozen shade. Cassandra finished off her shade just as the frozen shade exploded.

“Sheathe your dagger, now!” Immediately she sheathed Hissrad’s Dagger and stared at the ground expressionless and waited silently for Cassandra to speak again, all the while keeping a trained eye on the warrior. She heard the warrior sigh to herself, “I apologize, I cannot protect you, and I cannot expect you to be defenseless. I should remember that you agreed to come willingly.”

She followed Cassandra silently and kept the dagger sheathed, in case the warrior changed her mind. She used her magic to help the warrior fight the demons that dogged their path up the mountain. She saw that Cassandra kept glancing back at her with sympathy and acted as if she wanted to apologize again. After Cassandra’s reaction to just a dagger in her hands, Seranni thought it best not to Shout in the warrior’s presence unless absolutely necessary.

Cassandra cleared her throat as if she felt awkward, “We’re getting close to the rift. You can hear the fighting.”

Seranni could tell that Cassandra had meant it as a way to start a conversation back up, but she remained silent as they reached the top of the stairs. Once everything came into view, she immediately saw the rift that Cassandra had spoken of and saw a group of soldiers struggling against the demons. Cassandra leapt down the stone wall that separated them from the battle and she extended her will to protect and heal the soldiers that were fighting the demons and once they seemed to be under control she slid herself down the wall and walked calmly up to the rift.

“Quickly, before more come through!” a bald elven man grabbed her left hand and thrust it upwards towards the rift, she fought not to hiss at his touch. She felt the pull of the rift and she felt something ask her, ‘open or closed?’ She thought about closing the rift as hard as she could and when she pulled her hand back, the rift was no more.

“At least this thing’s good for something,” she eyed the warrior woman as she spoke, but saw nothing in the warrior’s face to indicate that she wasn’t supposed to talk. Seranni kept her magicka poking at the mark and discovered that when the bald elf had grabbed her, something in the mark responded. It was as if the mark were an overeager puppy and the bald elf was it’s master.

“You are very perceptive, whatever magic opened the Breach in the sky also placed that mark upon your hand. I theorized the mark might be able to close the rifts that have opened in the Breach’s wake - and it seems I was correct,” the elven mage seemed pleased with himself as he stated his observations. He seemed to know more about what was going on than he was letting on. Seranni kept her magicka poking at the mark on her hand and found that the mark was actively trying to kill her simply because she wasn’t it’s master.  _ Too bad, little mark. You’re on my body, which makes you mine. Not through either of our choices mind you.  _ It was then that the strangest feeling came over her, sort of like a begrudging acceptance. Her mind came back to reality when a new, gruff voice made itself known.

“Good to know! Here I thought we’d bed ass-deep in demons forever,” a new voice called out, she had never seen a dwarf before in person, but from the stories she had heard throughout the years, she knew a dwarf when she saw one. She watched him curiously as he approached, “Varric Tethras: rogue, storyteller, and occasionally unwelcome tagalong.” He said this last part to the warrior woman and winked at her. Out of the corner of her eye, Seranni saw Cassandra scowl at the dwarf and scoff disgustedly.

“So are you with the Chantry? Or..” she let the question hang as the elven mage laughed.

“Was that a serious question?”

“Technically I’m a prisoner, just like you,” he looked at Cassandra with a sour look.

“I brought you here to tell your story to the Divine. Clearly that is no longer necessary,” the warrior scoffed at the dwarf.

“Nice crossbow,” Seranni quickly changed the subject, lest the warrior turn her anger back on her female prisoner.

Varric looked at the crossbow that was now strapped to his back, “ah, isn’t she? Bianca and I have been through a lot together.”

“Bianca, huh?”

“Yeah and she’ll be great company in the valley.”

Cassandra spoke up then, “absolutely not. Your help is appreciated, Varric, but…”

“Have you been in the valley lately, Seeker? Your soldiers aren’t in control anymore. You need me.” Seranni pondered at Varric’s use of the word Seeker, she had only heard one thing about them. They were like some kind of super Templar, she focused her senses on the woman and felt the familiar feeling of magic suppression. She made a note to talk with Cassandra about it later, that is, if the woman’s mood kept Seranni in favor with her.

“My name is Solas, if there are to be introductions. I’m pleased to see you still live,” Solas bowed politely to her.

“He means, ‘I kept that mark from killing you while you slept.’” Varric commented.

“You have my thanks, you seem to be quite knowledgeable about all this.”

“Like you, Solas is an apostate,” Cassandra commented. _ I doubt very much that there are many apostates like me. _

“Technically, all mages are now apostates, Cassandra. My travels have allowed me to learn much of the Fade, far beyond the experience of any Circle mage. I came to offer whatever help I can give with the Breach. If it is not closed, we are all doomed regardless of origin.” He was rather wordy for an apostate elf. He seemed to like the sound of his own voice and seemed prideful in his explanations, as if there was no other mage that could possibly know what he knew.

“And when this is over?”

“One hopes that those in power will remember who helped, and who did not.” Yep, he definitely like the sound of his own voice. “Cassandra, you should know: the magic involved here is unlike any I have ever seen. Your prisoner is a mage, but I find it difficult to imagine any mage having such power.” Something in his tone and body language set off red flags in her mind, he was lying. Why was he lying?

Cassandra nodded her understanding, “Understood. We must get to the forward camp quickly.”

“Well, Bianca’s excited!” her mouth quirked upwards slightly at Varric’s joke. The group quickly dispatched the demons that barred their path up the mountain. As they walked together Solas began to speak with her.

“So you from the Free Marches or what?”

“No,” was all Seranni offered.

“I can’t quite place the accent, maybe you could help me out,” Varric prodded again.

“I grew up in Par Vollen, spent these last years elsewhere,” she didn’t think that these people needed to know about Skyrim and her time there.

The mark on her hand flared, Varric winced for her but she made no outward sign that it bothered her, “shit, you alright?”

“I am fine,” she spoke calmly. She had had to bite back a moan at the pain her mark caused, which was only intensified due to her own magicka entwining with the power of the mark.

“So...are you innocent?”

“I don’t remember what happened.”

“That’ll get you every time. Should have spun a story,” Varric teased her.

“That is what you would have done,” Cassandra scowled as she looked ahead.

Varric shrugged, “It’s more believable, and less prone to result in premature execution.” She couldn’t fault his logic and shrugged her shoulders in response.

The group continued to quickly dispatch of the demons that kept coming at them as they made their way upwards. They rounded a corner and saw that just outside the next gate they came to was another rift. From Cassandra’s body language she assumed this to be the forward camp and she immediately placed healing barriers around the soldiers that looked to have been fighting against the demons for a while. She followed Cassandra’s lead and once she was in range she extended her left hand and felt the familiar tug of the rift against her mark. Again the feeling of the rift asking ‘open or close’ crossed her mind and she willed for it to close.

“The rift is gone! Open the gate!” Cassandra shouted at the guards.

“Right away, Lady Cassandra,” one soldier responded and once the gates were opened, Seranni could hear Lelianna arguing with a male voice.

“We must prepare the soldiers!” 

“We will do no such thing.” The male’s voice sounded particularly whiney.

“The prisoner must get to the Temple of Sacred Ashes. It is our only chance!”

“You have already caused enough trouble without resorting to this exercise in futility.”

“I have caused trouble?” Lelianna asked the man incredulously.

“You, Cassandra, the Most Holy- haven’t you all done enough already?”

“You are not in command here.”

“Enough! I will not have it,” the man looked up as they approached, “Ah, here they come.”

“You made it. Chancellor Roderick, this is-”

“I know who she is. As Grand Chancellor of the Chantry, I hereby order you to take this criminal to Val Royeaux to face execution.”

She glared at the man introduced as Chancellor Roderick, she grasped the front of his robes and pulled him towards her face over the table he was behind, “the only way I will die is by blade in battle. I will not be executed like a dog too old to stand. I have survived too much to die any other way.” With that she shoved him back to fall into the stack of boxes behind him.

“Since none of you can come to any kind of agreement and I bear the mark that will close these rifts, then I will hear your options to get me to the Breach.” She looked between Lelianna and Cassandra who were both looking at her in shock.

Cassandra seemed to regain her composure first, “the most direct route would be straight up the path, we can take a contingent of soldiers and we can rush the temple site. It’s the quickest way.”

“But not the safest. Our forces can charge as a distraction while you go through the mountains,” Lelianna offered.

“We lost contact with an entire squad on that path. It’s too risky.” Cassandra rebutted.

The Chancellor spoke up when he finally untangled himself from the boxes, “Listen to me. Abandon this now, before more lives are lost.”

“Lives will be lost either way, at least we have a plan for stopping the loss of life completely,” she glared at the Chancellor again and he seemed to wilt. “We will take the mountain path. Lelianna, bring everyone you can to charge the temple as a distraction, let’s move.”

Seranni stalked away from the forward camp and didn’t have to look back to know that Cassandra, Varric, and Solas followed her lead. She let the lay of the land tell her where she needed to go in order to find the path to go further up the mountain. Finally they came to a wall and some ladders. They made their way through the tunnels with Cassandra leading them so they wouldn’t get lost. As they exited the tunnel they saw some soldiers dead, Varric commented on it and Cassandra didn’t think that was all the members of the squad. Then they heard sounds of fighting and they rushed to rescue the rest of the squad that had opened up. The rift was effectively trapping the soldiers at the edge of the wall that overlooked the mountain. The group quickly dispatched the rift as before and the group tried to thank them, but Seranni just kept walking down the path.

“What, don’t like your adoring fans?” Varric asked her as he caught up to her.

“No, I don’t,” was all she said.

“Well, you may have to get used to it, the people are going to see you as helping them. You’re gonna have to learn to be friendly to them,” he advised.

“Yeah? And when they find out what I am?”

“What? A mage? You ever hear of the Champion of Kirkwall, Hero of Ferelden? Both of them are mages,” Varric looked at her incredulously as she shook her head.

“Never heard of either of them, grew up farther north, this is the farthest south I have ever been,” she shrugged at the dwarf, “Never saw a dwarf before today either."

“Well, shit. You must’ve really been living under a rock. Wait, never mind, dwarves live there too,” he smiled at his own joke and her lips twitched upwards.

They approached the ruins of the temple and all that was left standing were random bits of wall. All around them were corpses either burnt to a crisp and petrified from the heat, some corpses were still burning. The familiar smell of burning corpses caused her eyes to fall to the ground and she slowed her pace to fall in step behind Cassandra. The other three watched her, but she offered no explanation and didn’t look like she was going to either so they remained silent. They reached the inner circle of the temple and took a moment to rest before Lelianna rounded the corner.  _ By the Divines! I should not be acting this way. It’s been years since- _ She couldn’t even finish the thought, thankfully Lelianna found them.

“You’re here! Thank the Maker.”

“Have your people take up position around the temple,” Lelianna nodded and moved to obey Cassandra’s command. “This is our chance to end this. Are you ready?”

She looked at the Seeker with a blank expression and nodded silently and followed her down the pathway to the Breach itself just as she had before. They made their way down the pathway and she listened as voices sounded all around them.

“Now is the hour of our victory. Bring forth the sacrifice.” something in the man’s voice seemed familiar to her, as if a memory was trying to claw it’s way to the surface, but was blocked somehow.

“What are we hearing?” Cassandra asked the group.

“At a guess: The person who created the Breach.” Solas responded.

Out of the corner of her eye she sees a giant red crystal jutting from the ground and she sees Varric stiffen and eye the crystal warily, “You know this stuff is red lyrium, Seeker.”

“I see it, Varric,” Cassandra sounded strained.

“But what’s it doing here?”

“Magic could have drawn on the lyrium beneath the temple, corrupted it…”

“Ugh, it’s evil. Whatever you do, don’t touch it.” Varric shuddered at the mere thought of it and Seranni knew there was more to the story and made a note of it.

The disembodied voice spoke again, “Keep the sacrifice still.”

“Someone help me!” a female voice cried out in fear. Again it felt as if a memory was trying to claw it's way to the surface of her mind, but there was something stopping the memory.

“That is Divine Justinia’s voice,” Cassandra turned to look at Seranni in shock.

She offers no explanation, for she cannot give one. They continue down the path and once they reach the bottom level a vision appears before them. They see Divine Justinia held in midair by a tall shadowy figure before they hear Seranni’s voice.

“What’s going on here?”

“That was your voice, Most Holy called out to you, but…” Cassandra is cut off by Divine Justinia speaking again.

“Run while you can, warn them.”

The man spoke again, “We have an intruder. Slay the girl!”

The images disappeared and Cassandra rounded on Seranni again, “You were there then. Who attacked? And the Divine, is she…? Was this vision true? What are we seeing?”

Her eyes narrowed at Cassandra, “I don’t remember, if I knew what happened here do you think I would be looking around as lost as you all are?”

“Echoes of what happened here, the Fade bleeds into this place,” Solas spoke sagely, “this rift is not sealed, but it is closed...albeit temporarily. I believe with the mark, the rift can be opened and then sealed properly and safely. However, opening the rift will likely attract attention from the other side.”

“That means demons. Stand ready!” Cassandra shouted to all the warriors gathered.

She waited until everyone was in position before she extended her will towards the rift. She heard the same question again, ‘open or close?’ This time she willed for it to open and the rift leapt at her instruction. Before them appeared the largest demon she had ever seen. It looked like a giant Kossith and she gulped nervously as the demon crackled electric whips from his hands.

She placed her barriers around the people fighting the demon on the ground and tried to use her own electricity to redirect his. It worked, but it hurt as the electricity she redirected from the demon crackled along her own body. She breathed through the pain just as she had always done and welcomed the pain as a part of her. She used her right hand to continue to redirect the demons electric attacks as she extended her left hand and her will to close the rift above them. She seemed to only weaken the rift in stages, with each stage the demon seemed to get weaker, but more shades came out of the rift with each stage as well. Solas caught on to what she was doing and began to mimic her, except he redirected the electrical energy directly to the enemy shades instead of in on himself. Finally the demon went down one last time and remained kneeling for longer than he had before and she extended her hand and will towards the rift once more. She saw the rift at the bottom of the green pillar close, but saw nothing more as her world was encompassed in darkness once more.


	8. Hissrad Returns

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Warning, we have a magical BAMF

Seranni, Varric, Solas, and Cassandra had just returned from Val Royeaux and the Hinterlands, they had gained a couple of allies and on their way back to Haven they had stopped in the Hinterlands once more to recruit another ally. Vivienne would make a great Tamassran, she commanded respect and dignity of herself and those around her. Unfortunately that included Seranni and Sera, Vivienne would not stop bickering with Sera. Sera would not stop trying to goad Vivienne into an undignified screaming match of some sort, she was sure that that was Sera’s end goal here. To show Vivienne that she was still a person under all that fop. It was really kind of cute until Vivienne decided to be a bitch about it.

Blackwall was another story altogether. She had never met a grey warden and was unsure what to think of him. He was certainly a capable warrior, but there was something off about him. His unconscious movements spoke of a life of ease and silks, yet here he was helping farmers to defend themselves from bandits.

From what she had seen of southern nobility she was very disappointed and thought back on her experiences in Skyrim.  _ Guess nobles are assholes no matter where you go. At least in Skyrim I could not only murder them, but get paid for it as well. _ Seranni thought back to Hissrad, he would have made the nobles around him look the fools without them even realizing it until it was too late. She missed her friend and stared at his dagger. She wondered, not for the first time, what had happened to him after Seheron.

She entered the makeshift war room with Cassandra and reported all that had happened in Val Royeaux and the Hinterlands. The Heads of the Inquisition looked at her impressed by her efficiency with her report, she gave better reports than many of their soldiers. Once she was finished she turned and left them to continue their discussions. She made her way out of the Chantry and saw a soldier standing in front of the chantry doors.

“Excuse me, I’ve got a message for the Inquisition, but I’m having a hard time getting anyone to talk to me,” he seemed friendly enough so she agreed for him to tell her his message, “We got word of some Tevinter mercenaries working out on the storm coast. My company Commander, Iron Bull, offers the information free of charge. If you’d like to see what the Bull’s Chargers and do for the Inquisition, meet us there and watch us work.”

“What should the Inquisition know about your commander?”

“Iron Bull? He’s one of those Qunari. Big guys with horns?” she exhaled marginally sharper through her nose at the description. When they were at Madame de Fer’s chateau, she had overheard some of the noble women talking about the Bull’s Chargers being led by a Qunari, but she had hoped they were wrong when she had spoken with Cremisius Aclassi as he had introduced himself. “He leads from the front, he pays well, and he’s a lot smarter than the last bastard I worked for.”

Her lips quirked upwards at the description and nodded her understanding and told the soldier to make sure to get some food in his belly before heading back out. She turned and walked back into the Chantry and knocked on the door before entering the War Room again. She waited silently until their current topic of discussion came to a close before she spoke her piece.

“The Lieutenant of Bull’s Chargers has just delivered a message to me saying that there are Tevinter mercenaries out on the Storm Coast. If we were to wish to hire his company all we need do is send a party out there to watch him and his team work,” she reported to them and turned to leave until Cassandra touched her shoulder and gestured for her to stay.

She waited for them to speak to her, they all looked at her nervously until Cassandra blurted out, “We would like to send you to meet with this mercenary group Lady Herald.”

She slightly narrowed her eyes at Cassandra for the Lady Herald comment, “If you send me, then you will be sending me as the official emissary of the Inquisition are you not?”

Josephine looked to the Herald with surprise, “Yes, that was our intent.”

“Then you will abide by my decisions in the field,” she asked the four heads of the Inquisition.

“Such as?” Cullen inquired.

“You have all been arguing between allying ourselves with either the mages or the templars for weeks, I’m assuming that you will be sending me as Herald. However, this is different, I am going out and acting on behalf of the Inquisition. Therefore whether or not I choose to hire this mercenary company is completely in my hands?” Out of the corner of her eye she saw Lelianna smile in approval.

“Yes, that is our plan. Is there a problem with that?” Lelianna asked sweetly.

“None at all, just so long as everyone is clear. Is there anything else you would like me to take care of on the way to the Storm Coast?”

“Who would you like to take with you to the Storm Coast?” Josephine asked sweetly.

“Cassandra, Sera, Varric, and Vivienne, let her know that I want to continue to discuss Circle technique if she is willing to continue to teach me. If that is all, I will prepare to leave for the Storm Coast in the morning,” with that she walked out of the Chantry walked to the left and sat herself on her knees in the snow and she stared at the ground. She knew she was kneeling in snow, but she didn’t care. This was a lot to process, the world was ending and here she was worrying whether or not the Qunari Mercenary Commander was Tal-Vashoth or not. Sure she had faced worse in Skyrim and had been in charge of organizations as large as, if not larger, than the Inquisition. However, never before had she immediately been thrust into such a position.

She didn’t know how long she sat there in the snow, but suddenly Cassandra’s voice rang around her and she felt Cassandra’s presence as she approached, “Lady Seranni, what are you doing?” She looked around and saw Varric staring at her, his mouth agape as the rest of the crowd that surrounded her slowly began to dissipate. She noticed that Solas looked particularly concerned and she turned her attention back to Varric.

“What the fuck? I-I have no words, I was trying for three hours to get your attention. I brought Solas over, Vivienne, Sera, Blackwall, Flissa, hell I even brought Jim over. But as soon as Cassandra come waltzing out of the Chantry you just perk right up don’t you,” he sounded exhausted and confused.

“Next time get Cassandra first,” she rose and walked over to Cassandra and lowered her voice to a whisper, “Cassandra, I need you, now please.” Cassandra nodded and followed her to her cabin and once inside she stood in the center of her cabin and turned to face the Seeker.

“Your watchword?”

She sighed, “Dathrasi.”

Cassandra had convinced her that she didn’t have to wear her collar anymore, but she had convinced Cassandra that sometimes she needed the pain to cope with some things. (Like suddenly being thrust into a position of power.) She got a sense of clarity from it, it was like a drug for her, but it helped her to function. So they created the system that whenever Seranni needed the pain she would go to Cassandra. They would reaffirm her watchword that would cause Cassandra to cease the use of her smite ability. She had yet to actually use her watchword outside their confirmation ritual, but they had come up with this system after Cassandra saw her without any form of pain in the Hinterlands. She was much better this way, but Cassandra hated doing this to her each time.

Cassandra used her ability on Seranni and watched for any sign of change and kept it going for as long as she could. As usual no outward signs were shown, but she closed her eyes like usual and Cassandra watched as peace settled across Seranni’s features. She would never understand this need to feel pain like this, but it helped her friend and she felt her reserves run out and her ability’s affects ended.

Her eyes opened and she helped Cassandra to sit on her bed beside her, she knew Cassandra wanted to discuss her need for pain this time and she began to speak before Cassandra could ask, “It’s one thing being sent when they specifically request the Herald of Andraste. It’s an entirely different thing when I am being sent where my choices change things and I’m the one sent as an official chosen emissary of the Inquisition. Does that make sense?”

Cassandra nodded, she had never felt that way, but Seranni was very good with her words when she was comfortable around the person. She was very expressive too, she smiled broadly and her eyebrows quirked with an attitude that Cassandra appreciated. Her wit was sharper than even Vivienne and Cassandra saw how much of her intellect she hid from the world.

“If you don’t mind me asking, what was your childhood like?”

The effect was immediate, Seranni sat up ramrod straight and looked to the ground in thought, Cassandra gave her time to think, she had tried to broach the subject before, but had always been diverted to another subject. Even so, Cassandra could see the clear signs of tragedy in Seranni’s past.

Seranni’s eyes went from the floor to Cassandra’s face and she watched as the young Herald examined her face, “My first memories are of my Tama teaching me my colors and animals, I was a year old.”

She then told Cassandra all of what had happened up to her first meeting with Flemeth. What she had endured under Dathrasi’s care, what he had made her do to her Tama, and all about her time in Seheron. (minus the absorption of the Dragon’s soul in that cave.) Cassandra nodded her understanding and when Seranni was finished she got up and let the Herald get comfortable for the night, “If you like, I can come with you to meet with the Qunari Mercenary. I’ll watch your back, Seranni. No matter what.”

She smiled at Cassandra, she reminded her of a mother bear protecting her cub and she appreciated the protection she offered. She just felt it was far too late for her to need protection. She drifted off to sleep and dreamed of Hissrad. She dreamed of Hissrad every night on their way to the Storm Coast, some nights he was being tortured and killed in front of her. Some nights he was living it up as the Arishok, then on the last night before they were to meet with this Iron Bull, she had a dream about Hissrad that she had never had about him before.

Her dream began with her and Hissrad going around and healing some of the sick in Seheron as they had many times during her time with him. Once they were done healing the sick and injured, he led her to an empty room in the clinic and gently held her head in his hands, just as he had the night he had left. Only this time he brought his mouth down to meet hers and her stitches melted away as his lips molded to hers. She felt his hands slide down her body, mapping every curve with his fingers. He slid his arms up to her torso and slid the cloth of her Antaam-saar to the side, revealing her breasts to him.

He pulled back and eyed her hungrily. She stood inhumanly still as he had left her and he slowly undid the breeches of her uniform. One hand slid her breeches off her legs as the other cupped her heat and she moaned as she felt him enter a finger inside her. Her hands gripped his horns as she bucked her hips against his fingers. Suddenly his mouth replaced his fingers and the intensity of the sensation in her dream caused her to wake with a jolt, she looked to her right to see Cassandra still sleeping peacefully and she slowly left her tent.

They journeyed to the Storm Coast and the morning they were to arrive went normal as they worked to pack up their campsite back onto the horses. They should be arriving at the Inquisition forward camp around what the nobles called brunch time and they would receive a report from the scout of the area and see what The Bull’s Chargers was all about. They met with Scout Harding again and were told that these Blades of Hessarian needed to be dealt with. She made a mental note and made her way to the place where they were to observe the Bull and his Chargers. She was thinking on the meaning of the name of the Company when flashes of grey caught her attention down on the beach.

She looked at their Qunari leader and froze. She was sure she wasn’t even breathing, she would have thought her heart had stopped as well if it weren’t currently pounding in her chest. There, on the beach, was Hissrad doing what he loved doing, raising his kill count. She barely kept her face neutral, but then she saw an enemy sneaking up behind him. Out of reflex she snapped a barrier around him and shot lightning at the enemy. It wasn’t until Hissrad turned that she realized he knew the enemy had been there and looked up the hill and she saw the moment when he saw her. He froze for a moment, she raised her hand in an awkward half-wave and he shook his head and turned to return to the fight.

She began to lead her Inquisition party down the hill, she kept her barrier around Hissrad up out of habit and made sure to keep herself within range for her barrier to completely encompass him. By the time they made it down to the beach all the enemies were dead and she saw Hissrad pointedly not look at her and she waited patiently.

“Chargers! Stand down! Krem, how’d we do?”

“Five or six wounded Chief! No dead,” Cremisius responded.

“That’s what I like to hear, have the throat cutters finish up, then break out the casks,” the moment Hissrad turned his attention back to the Inquisition party she fought to keep her composure, who knew what the re-educators had done to him. However, as he stared at their approaching party, she heard him say it. The two words in all the worlds that would make her run to him.

“Side Arm!” She broke off at a dead run, straight for him. She leaped and landed in his arms as she wrapped her arms around his neck tightly.

She whispered, ‘Hissrad’ in his ear and hugged him tighter while making sure not to cut off his airway. She heard Cassandra clear her throat behind her, but she didn’t care. Hissrad was back in her life, she felt whole again. Once she had whispered his name in his ear he hugged her back just as tightly and she felt him take a few shuddering breaths against her. He slowly lowered her to the ground and slowly pulled himself back so that he could look at her. His eye roamed her face and her eyes roamed his. She looked to his left eye, or rather where it used to be and placed her hand against his face. He leaned into her touch for a moment before he pulled back and looked at her questioningly.

“Turns out I won’t need you for these negotiations, Cassandra,” she called out, refusing to let her eyes leave Hissrad.

“If you’re sure, Herald,” she could hear a little bit of worry in Cassandra’s voice, she would tell her what was going on later, right now she just wanted to talk with Hissrad. For the first time they could talk to each other.

He led her to where two large rocks sat facing each other and would make great seats, they both sat facing each other for a moment. To an outsider it would look as if they were just staring at each other, but to each other they were deciding who would share their journey first and Hissrad won the argument when she scrunched up her face in defeat, “fine.”

“So that’s what your voice sounds like,” she grinned at his tease.

“Yeah, after I left your tent I headed South until I could no longer see the camp and immediately headed East.” She shifted nervously, “Traveled quite a bit after that.” She didn’t think that he would honestly believe her if she suddenly started talking about magic mirrors that sent you to other realms.

“I turned myself in to the re-educators and they evaluated me. They then immediately sent me out here to Orlais and Ferelden area to be a Ben-Hassrath agent. Now what’s this business with you being the Herald of Andraste? bet the Chantry just loves you. Mage Herald of Andraste raised by the Qun,” Hissrad chuckled at the mental image. He had noticed her reluctance to talk about anything that happened between Seheron and now, and he let it go. She would tell him when she was ready, or when it became relevant, like how she had the aura of a Dragon now.

“So, The Iron Bull?” 

“Er, yeah, I needed a name other than Hissrad, so while I’m here call me Bull or Iron Bull, no Hissrad,” she nodded her confirmation. “I still send reports back.”

“If it were anyone else that was the Herald of Andraste, would you tell them that you are Ben-Hassrath?”

“Yeah,” he nodded.

“Then all of your reports go through Lelianna, you send nothing she doesn’t approve,” he grinned at her.

“I knew you were the one drawing on my maps,” she grinned at him.

“But, did you die?!” she teased him.

Out of the corner of her eye she saw Krem approach and the grin left her face as her mask came back into place. Bull saw this and pondered at it, “You remember Krem?”

Krem looked at Bull oddly, “your worship,” he nodded his greeting, “Throat cutters are done chief.”

“Already? Better have them check again, don’t want any of those Tevinter bastards getting away, no offense Krem.”

“None taken, least a bastard knows who his mother was. Puts him one up on you Qunari right?”

Seranni’s eyes widened at the banter and felt good that Bull had found more of his kind of people, not only those that could take it, but dish it right back out. Bull loved that kind of bantering and she had wished more than once that she could have participated in it in her youth.

Bull laughed as Krem walked away, “Ah, Krem’s a good guy," he looked at her sidelong, asking her one of their old non verbal question games.

‘Would you bang him?’

She shrugged, ‘Dunno, maybe.’

He grinned at her, “Now I can ask you questions and not have a record of it somewhere.”

She held her face in one hand as she shook her head, “Why do I suddenly regret having a voice around you?” He laughed at her and she had a thought, “so are we going to tell everyone here that we know each other?”

He shrugged at her, “most of my boys know I’m Ben-Hassrath, if I say I knew you from Seheron they’ll understand.”

She nodded her agreement, “alright, let’s go tell these folks the happy news.”

“We’re getting married?!” he asked hopefully.

“No, that I’m pregnant, silly,” she quipped back.

“Right, right, I keep forgetting that one.”

“Well it is the reason for the one you always list first.”

“At least I’m making an honest woman out of you.”

“Well,” she paused too long, “shit!”

“First round goes to me,” he spoke smugly.

“You’ve had more practice than I have,” he grinned at her as she started a new round.

“Ah, but you have watched more matches than I have.”

“Watching and doing are very different things.”

His lips pursed in frustration, “fuuuuuuuck,” he drew out the sound of the word.

“And we’re tied,” the smug look left her face as they came up to their groups of people.

“Alright boys, pack it up! The Chargers just got hired!”

Krem shouted out at Bull from across the group, “But chief! What about the casks? We just opened them up! With Axes.”

“Well then seal them. You’re Tevinter, right? Try Blood magic!”

Seranni rolled her eyes at him, “Yep, definitely your men, Bull.” She walked over to the cask that had been swung at with an axe and ran her hand along the wood. Bull watched as it repaired itself just as he remembered her doing all those years ago in Seheron when a farmer’s family chest had been swung at with axes. The poor man thought his family treasure was lost until he showed up with her, she had wanted to help the man and had begged him with her eyes, so of course he let her do it. The unbridled joy that it had brought both her and the farmer was worth it.

“So, boss, what’s your plan for me, you want me to head to Haven or stick around with you?” She didn’t say anything, but instead looked at him incredulously, he chuckled at her, “Hey, Krem, head on back to Haven without me. She’s taking me up on the offer of Bodyguard right away.”

“Sure thing chief,” was the response and Varric noticed that their Herald’s small smile grew a little that day. He also picked up on their little game of one liners that keep a cohesive story, it was actually a really good tool for him to keep him on his toes so he joined in on the rounds. Sera played sometimes, but she got bored with it and went to bother Vivienne. Cassandra noticed how at ease Seranni seemed with the Iron Bull around, you have to be blind to miss it. The only people from Seranni’s past that fit this kind of relationship were her first Arvaarad, which Seranni obviously had mixed feelings about, and Hissrad.

They found the dead scouting party and Seranni saw a book that talked about the Blades of Hessarian and read about a rite of challenge to take over their little band. They made their way back to an Inquisition camp and she sat down at a table and began working the materials into the shape of the Mercy’s Crest necklace from the book. She hadn’t decided how she would deal with them yet, but wanted to have her options open to her. She went to sleep that night and when she woke the next morning she decided to don the necklace she had made last night and deal with these Blades as peacefully as possible.

She challenged their leader to one on one combat and asked her companions to step back. They all grew worried, except for Bull, when the leader opened the two cages to his sides, releasing the Mabari within. The only thing that stopped them was Bull’s hand raising in a signal to wait and watched eagerly.

She extended her hand towards the leader of the Blades and suddenly he was on fire while the Mabari had electricity arcing between them. “You ordered the deaths of innocent soldiers for your greed. This is intolerable, may you suffer a thousand infernos for the crimes you have committed.”

Bull watched her face as he read her actions, she had quickly and painlessly dispatched of the dogs. The man however she was making him suffer before he died, she understood mercy and gave it to those she deemed worthy. She hadn’t really changed too much since Seheron, insofar as her rules went.

“Good to know some things never change, boss,” Bull grinned at her and Varric looked between the two.

“‘Some things never change’? Care to explain Inferno,” she raised her eyebrow at his nickname for her and she sighed.

“Rule 16,” she then walked away to talk to the Lieutenant that would run the Inquisition’s presence on the Coast.

“If someone thinks they have the upper hand, break it.”

“I don’t get it,” Cassandra asked.

“He was a warrior, he saw her as a weak little mage and to further his overconfidence he had two Mabari attack dogs. He thought he had this in the bag, but instead she quickly took out his dogs and if you’ll notice, he’s not dead.” He nodded to the crispy looking man crouched in front of the throne. By the time they noticed him, Seranni came back and wrapped a clean blanket around him.

“I could have killed you, I didn’t. I will heal you now and if you attempt to do anything like this again I will come after you and do the same thing, only I will not heal you afterwards. Understood?”

The man slowly nodded his head and shook as if he were sobbing, she placed a glowing blue hand on the man’s face and Bull watched as she healed the man before her. He had known what she was capable of back in Seheron, he understood that this was their first time seeing her do something like this. Seeing something that you can’t wrap your head around as if it couldn’t possibly be possible to happen. Like a ring of fire made by a little girl who wanted to protect her people. He was proud that she did offer mercy now, far more freely than she had before.

Soon the man was healed and he knelt at her feet and wept. She called for the man she would be leaving in charge to get a pack ready for him. The man returned moments later with a pack that he handed to her. She knelt and pulled the man to stand beside her.

Suddenly he turned her around in his arms with her dagger pressed against her throat, “alright nobody move, now here’s going to ha- aaaaaaaauuuuuuuggh.”

He began screaming as he let go of both her and her dagger, she bent down and picked it back up. She left him barely conscious in a charred and crispy husk, she told the other Blades to do with him as they wished, but she was done here.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Upon hearing Seranni's life story, Cassandra immediately went to Josephine and asked about all the requirements for adopting an adult girl into her family. Josephine wondered where this was coming from with the Seeker and pulled out the appropriate documents, perhaps the seeker wished to adopt one of the orphans that flocked Haven. The Seeker didn't seem that kind of woman however. She sat down at Josephine's desk and filled out the paperwork and when Josephine saw the name of the girl she wished to adopt.
> 
> "You can not be serious?!"
> 
> "Of course I'm serious, Josephine. I want to adopt her into my family."
> 
> "But why? I mean won't that cause problems with-" Josephine was cut off by Cassandra explaining the situation before she could even ask.
> 
> "That won't be an issue, she has no one else."
> 
> "Well, if you're sure then, but you'll need her signature as well."
> 
> "That won't be a problem, we'll get it in the morning, for now we will let her rest."
> 
> The next morning Seranni was awoken by Cassandra holding a piece of paper in front of her.
> 
> "One of the orphan children wanted the signature of the Herald of Andraste so that she had something that could give her a sense of safety."
> 
> "Oh," she groggily took the quill from Cassandra and signed her sloppy signature on the piece of parchment and waved Cassandra off. It wasn't until she had had her morning cup of coffee that she realized the odd behavior of Cassandra asking for her signature for an orphan child.


	9. Wants and Desire

When they all returned to Haven she made Bull come with her to the war council meeting, once all six people were there she cleared her throat to make sure she had everyone’s attention. “Lelianna, you probably already know everything I’m about to say, but I wanted Cassandra to be here to also corroborate what I’m about to tell you.”

He looked at her questioningly, ‘what you going to tell them?’

She looked at Bull and took a deep breath and nodded her head at him, ‘that you are to be trusted.’

He settled into silence as she spoke, “first to set your fears aside, Cassandra, this is Hissrad.” Some of the tension in the warrior woman’s shoulders eased and Bull realizes that she had told this woman much of her past indeed.

“Secondly, he is a Ben-Hassrath agent. Before you protest Cullen, he is the best Ben-Hassrath agent that could have possibly landed on our doorstep.” she looked at him sadly, “because he’s already proven that he will cover for me. If not for him, I wouldn’t be here right now. I would probably be either back in Seheron, Par Vollen, or dead.”

“But you are a mage, so you-” Josephine’s eyes widened in horror as every terrifying thing she had heard that the Qun does to their mages, it made the circle look like a petting zoo.

“I am Saarebas, I grew up under the Qun and when Hissrad left Seheron it was not safe for me to remain with the Qun and live, so I ran. He made that possible, so when I tell you that I trust this man with my life, I mean to tell you that he held my life in the palm of his hand.” She took out the control rod that she still strapped to her thigh even though she didn’t wear the collar anymore.

“He held my life in the palm of his hand and he gave it back to me. Take that as you will, I leave for Redcliffe to meet with the mages in the morning with Bull, Sera, and Solas. Have a good evening,” with that she walked out of the war room with Bull following her lead once again. She grimaced. *At least walk beside me, Hissrad. It feels weird to have you follow my lead.* she switched to Qunlat as they exited the Chantry.

“Meravas, Boss.”

“And quit calling me boss,” she grimaced at the man beside her.

*Not like I can call you Saarebas,* Bull commented.

*No, you can’t call me Saarebas, but you could call me Side Arm, like you used to. Like you did at the Storm Coast. Hell, Varric calls me Inferno,* she continued in Qunlat until she heard Varric’s jovial voice calling out to her.

“Hey I heard my name over there, you two better not be talking about me behind my back,” he grinned at them good naturedly, but she could see the unease in Varric’s eyes. He was terrified of her, just like Vivienne was. Cassandra had gotten a taste of what she could do from their regularly scheduled Smite sessions. Bull had already seen what she could do in Seheron, so she stuck closer to him.

Bull smiled and waved good naturedly back at the dwarf, *so how did life treat you?*

She knew what he was really asking her, he was asking about the Qunari symbol branded into her lower back and the scarred skin that covered her right arm. He was asking her about what had happened before she had come to him. He saw her fall into her old pattern of walking with her eyes on the ground, but using her peripheral vision to navigate the world as she thought to herself.

Finally she responded when they left the gates of Haven behind them and they began to walk around the frozen pond just outside the gate, *My magic manifested when I was three years old.* She didn’t have to look at his face to see the growing horror on his features, she had learned from Arvaarad that Saarebas weren’t trained unless they were at least five years of age. Below that was deemed too traumatic for the Saarebas to be of any use, even under Qamek.

*My Tama told them I had just turned five years, she made me promise to do whatever they told me to do, no matter what it was that they told me to do. When I finished my training and was assigned to Dathrasi.* She cleared her throat, *That’s what I called the idiot Arvaarad I had.* She paused again as she listened to Hissrad laugh. She was supposed to think of him as Iron Bull now. Things were confusing back in Thedas, she knew how powerful she was compared to everyone around her, she knew everyone else felt it and that was why they were uneasy.

*Anyway, when they assigned me to Dathrasi, he tested me. He made me attack stationary dummies before healing my Tama. You remember the interrogations that Dathrasi would do with me?*

Bull nodded silently, his stomach rolling with sickness as he felt he knew what would come next for her, “yeah.”

*He had me do that to her first, he and Viddasala knew that my Tama had lied about my age. They seemed angry at her for more things than just turning children away from the Qun. They seemed angry at her for the number of kids she had that were loyal to her, if that makes any sense,* she shook her head as she cleared her head.

“Shit, that was right before you came to Seheron,” his eyes fell to her right hand, covered in scars that had seemed to have been from an intense flame. She stopped at the edge of the pond on the opposite side of Haven. She looked up towards the Chantry of Haven as she flexed her right arm.

“Yeah,” suddenly she dropped down and kneeled in the snow, staring at the ground. He silently sat next to her in the snow and watched the sky in silence as he waited for her to process all that had happened. Everything that resurfaced when she had talked about Tama this time around. She wanted to scream and cry out, lashing out with her magic. She trembled with a need to feel something, the pain that released her. She wished that she wore her collar again and Iron Bull could give it to her, like he had before. He had even used a similar system that Cassandra did, only she would tap her left leg twice if she wanted it to stop.

“By the Nine, you don’t even know what I am capable of,” she hates not being able to tell him what she is capable of, she wants to tell him all about Skyrim. How dragons were such a problem there. She wanted to tell him about the month facing, on average, three dragons a day. He would love those stories. He would love hearing about Farkas and Vilkas and all the Companions. It would pique his interest that she had assassinated the Emperor of the region. He would get a laugh out of Cicero and J’zargo. Hell, she’d love to tell him about Khajiit in general, but so long as he serves the Qun she can’t tell him anything about Skyrim or her true abilities. Some in the Qun could try and work a way of finding the mirrors that led her here.

***

Bull watched Saarebas- Seranni, he corrects himself, kneel in the snow. He watches as she wars with something within her. _What was with the phrase, ‘By the Nine’? What happened to her? Every sense I have is telling me there is a horde of dragons right where Seranni is. Gah, Seranni is just too weird, guess I’m stuck with Side Arm._ He felt his jaw clench as he fought the urge to hold her. It was not an unfamiliar urge, he had had the feeling many times before. There was something different this time. This time, he wanted more. He wanted to stand between her and the coming war that he could see claiming her. He wanted to take her away from all of this, she didn’t want to lead these people, yet here she was. She was their only option and she was doing better than he could have hoped for. Didn’t change how he felt.

He watched as she shifted and sat on her butt. She brought her knees up and wrapped her arms around them. He saw her thumb shift towards the center of her chest, but just before her thumb made contact, it stopped. Instead she turned her head to look at him.

“Please,” was all she said as she placed her hand on the ground. He knew what she wanted, he didn’t have the rod this time and she didn’t have the collar. He did have a dagger, he had seen her heal often enough that he knew her abilities. _At least, I know what they were._

***

Seranni gasped at the feeling of the dagger slicing through her hand. She knew that he had avoided slicing bones and tendons. The tension rolled out of her shoulders a bit. She knew that he saw tension leaving her and placed her free hand on top of the dagger to keep it there a moment longer. She stared into his eye and felt her core stirring.

“What did you feel when you first saw me?” His deep timbre somehow not disturbing the moment they were wrapped in.

Her heart hammered in her chest as if she were seeing him for the first time all over again. Her mind ran through her emotions from that day, emotions that she had been feeling since he came back into her life. There was only one word that could come close to describing how she felt.

“Whole.”

She saw the change in his eye that her word brought about, she knew he wanted something, but what she didn’t know. She didn’t know what she wanted from him, let alone what he wanted. She knew she had to leave before they did something either would regret. She moved her hand from the hilt of the dagger and Hissrad removed the dagger. On reflex, she healed her hand and rose gracefully from the snow.

“We should prepare for Redcliffe.”

***

Bull watched her leave, curiosity and hunger burned in his eyes. There was probably something wrong with him somewhere that he now saw the woman who had once been his charge as an incredibly sexy Herald of Andraste. He nearly groaned at that train of thought, he would have to distract himself with one of the Chantry sisters that had been eyeballing him like he was a piece of meat.

***

Seranni didn’t look up until she had closed the door of her cabin. She leaned against her door and looked up to her ceiling as she calmed her breathing. She didn’t know how to deal with what she was feeling towards Hissrad. It was far more intense than anything she had felt for anyone in Skyrim. She felt eyes on her and refocused her attention back to the inside of her cabin. Her eyes narrowed on the figure that sat in a chair, casually watching her.

“Do you require my assistance, Solas?” She raised an eyebrow inquiringly.

“Ah, yes, I was curious as to who your parents were?”

“I assume you’re talking about my biological parents, in which case I have no idea who they were.” Her Tama would have known who her parents had been and she swallowed down the lump in her throat. “I grew up under the Qun, now if you don’t mind I would like to pack to return to the Hinterlands in peace.”

She saw the moment of horror cross his face as he processed her words. She had heard about Circle life from the Circle mages that had joined the Inquisition and from Vivienne. He cleared his throat and rose quickly, she saw questions raging behind his eyes but he only cleared his throat, mumbled an apology and left her cabin. She undid the braid in her hair that Cassandra had taught her in the Hinterlands. She liked being able to have long hair and kept it braided in a circle around her head, she was forever grateful to Cassandra for teaching her this method, it looked pretty and was functional.

She carefully wrapped the leather band that Cassandra had given her for her hair and placed it on the bedside table. She placed Hissrad’s Dagger next to the leather band just as carefully. She decided that if anyone heard her talk about Hissrad’s Dagger, then she could write it off as a favored weapon that just happened to be named that. She peeled herself out of her armor and clothing. With each piece of clothing that came off, a myriad of tattoos were revealed. None were on the scarred tissue of her right arm and none went near the symbol of the Qun branded on her lower back. She brushed her thumb over one mark in particular.

“Mora,” it was said no louder than a whisper, but if anyone had heard the word, they would have heard the power behind it.

A middle-aged man appeared before her, he was dressed impeccably and held a cane in his hand. The handle of the cane looked to be an octopus with many eyes, the tentacles of the octopus intertwining down the length of he cane. He was not alone.

“Sugar Tits!” Before anything more could happen, Seranni’s fist met with the face of the man that had accompanied Mora. “Ouchie. Mora, she hit me again!”

The older man looked pained at having the tag along, “Sam keeps telling you not to call her that, it’s your fault for not listening, Sheogorath.”

“You’re right,” the younger man shook himself and wrapped his arms around Seranni in a hug that she never responded to.

“There a reason he tagged along,” she eyed Mora with an annoyed glare.

She leaned away from the man hugging her as he practically bounced with her in his arms and answered her question himself, “we were worried! You dist-appeared on us Sug- Champion.”

Seranni rolled her eyes at the Daedric Prince of Madness’ actions, she wiggled her arm free and placed it on his face and pushed him away from her. “I called you here, Mora, because I’m going to want access to all our books.”

Mora looked at her carefully, “you’ll add to them?”

“Of course,” she nodded her head to a crate of books that she had asked be delivered to her cabin, “I read them first, then they’re all yours.”

Mora nodded, ecstatic about gaining more knowledge, especially knowledge from another world entirely. Though none of his excitement shone to his exterior, he nodded his agreement and roughly grabbed Sheo by the back of his collar. “Until next time, my Champion.” Mora disappeared and where he once stood were his Seven Black Books. Seranni reverently ran her hands over the books and carefully wrapped them in one of the nicer fur lined cloaks that one of the villagers had given her. She placed them at the bottom of the chest at the foot of her bed that held her armor and other nicknacks that the villagers had given her. She lay down on her bed and forced herself to try to sleep, it had always come hard for her since leaving the Qun. Eventually sleep came for her and she was once again besotted with dreams of Hissrad.

It was the day’s events again, only this time she had stayed by the lake and he had kissed her like she had wanted. He had laid her down in the snow, but she didn’t care because he had then covered her with his own body and his hands roamed down her body eliciting moans of pleasure. His hands brushing here, stroking there. It felt as if he were everywhere and she were clay to be molded. He brought her hands to rest above her head and held them there with one hand while the other continued to roam her body.

The dream shifted and suddenly she was held against the wall of her cell in Seheron, but her lips were not sewn shut as was demonstrated by his tongue exploring her mouth. He pressed his body against her and she could feel his hardness through their clothes, hers had changed to her Antaam-taar while his had remained the same. His hand met with her strained breasts and she moaned as he rolled her nipple between his nimble fingers. Her hips rolled towards his, eliciting a loud groan from the man above her. The hand left her breasts and went back to roaming her body, ghosting across her bare belly, stroking her neck, circles on her lower back as her hips continued to thrust forwards away from the wall.

The hand that had been roaming her body stopped and undid the ties of her leggings with one hand and when they slid to her ankles his fingers immediately began stroking at her center. His mouth left hers and her head slid back to rest against the wall, exposing her throat to him. He growled and latched himself to her breast through the cloth. She cried out in pleasure and pain as he rolled the nipple between his teeth. He growled against her breast again and entered a finger inside her and she cried out again as she felt his thick fingers work within her.

***

As the scene progressed, both parties too distracted to notice anything around them. Viddasala stood as she watched them in her little corner of the Fade. ‘The All-Father will be pleased’ she thought to herself as she grinned. Just as The Iron Bull entered his cock inside the little Saarebas she waved her arm and sent both back to the world of the waking. She chuckled to herself as she reveled in the power the gained from her partnership. She turned her mind to her waking duties and woke herself to continue her work against Fen’Harel.


	10. Hairbands, Dragons, and Time Rifts

The Iron Bull awoke the next morning from the second wet dream he had had about Side Arm. He ran a hand over his face and sat up in his tent. The chantry sister he had spent the night with lay curled at his side and he chuckled to himself at how deeply they slept in the south. He gently kissed her awake and she went on her way. He knew it was early in the morning, too early for most people to be awake.

He stretched carefully to not tear his tent with his horns and got ready for the day. When he was putting on his leg brace he paused for a moment as a thought crossed his mind.  _ I wonder if Side Arm would be awake yet _ , he shook his head at his own silliness. He knew she would be awake, she always woke up before everyone. It made him wonder how many times she had woken up alone in her cell before anyone came to get her. He took a breath and exited his tent, he was greeted by the sight of Side Arm walking out the gates of Haven. He thought she was coming to see him again until she veered towards Cassandra’s tent to the north.

He saw her hair was down and shit, it was long. Had it always been such a vibrant red though? She appeared to be cradling something in her hands and she looked upset. He wondered what had happened and before he knew it he was casually walking to the North and kept his pace far enough away to subtly head that direction after she had entered the Seeker’s tent after standing in front of it for a moment. He had never seen her nervous, it had him concerned and as he came closer he expected to hear a conversation already in motion, but instead he heard silence.

“Seranni, I can’t help you if you don’t tell me what’s wrong,” Cassandra sounded closer to him than to the entrance of her tent. Good, she could read her.

“I broke your hairband,” she whispered.

He heard a huff of an exhale that sounded like Cassandra was holding back a smile, he grinned. He heard Cassandra take a deep breath before speaking, “that’s alright, I break mine all the time. Come, I’ll braid your hair if you like.” He heard her rummage in a bag for something and heard Seranni’s footfalls on the dirt.

“But, I broke your gift,” he could hear the confusion in her voice. He smiled to himself, it was good that she had found at least one person she could be vulnerable with.

“And I said that was alright,” she said firmly, “even if you break a thousand more, you can always come back and I’ll braid your hair and you can keep the band I put in.”

Damn, the Seeker would have made a great Tamassran too, right along with Vivienne. He nodded to himself and continued to casually make his way to the tavern for breakfast. She was in very good hands from what he had heard. On the way he met up with Krem who had just exited his tent.

“Hey, Chief. Heading to the tavern for breakfast?” he asked cheerily.

“You’re awfully chipper,” something had caught his eye here in Haven.

“Yeah, the breakfast at this tavern is great,” Krem grinned at Bull as they came up on the Tavern. Bull saw Krem’s face fall when the door opened and no music was heard, Bull held back a grin and almost chuckled when Krem’s face lit up again when he saw the bard helping the barmaid with breakfast service in the Tavern. The way the two women worked in the small tavern was interesting. They would each cover half the room and once they took your order, they cooked it and the other kept that side full with drinks while keeping her own people happy while she waited for either an order or for her turn in the kitchen. The two women worked well together and he could tell the practiced hand in running this way.

“Umm, so Chief, do you want an ale?” Bull shook his head at Krem and chuckled. Bull led the way over to a table nearby and sat with his back to the wall. It was on the bard’s side he had made sure and almost as soon as Krem sat down she walked over and glanced appreciatively at Krem before eyeing Bull.

“So, what can I get you boys, have you had breakfast yet?” the bard’s smile was happy, she enjoyed doing this. Running the tavern like this was like a dream come true and he saw the bard’s face fall when more women entered the tavern. He watched the women make their way to behind the counter of the tavern and began what looked to be their jobs.

Bull grinned at Krem and spoke before he could have a chance, “I want the biggest breakfast you can make, miss?”

Krem looked at Bull in horror until Bull flicked his eyes in the bard’s direction and saw the bard smile brightly at them. Krem saw gratitude cross her face and wondered what was going on, so he went with it and asked for the same to be made for him after telling them her name was Maryden. Bull nodded approvingly and as she walked away to make their breakfast Krem looked at him expectantly.

“She enjoys running the tavern like that. Running around and cooking every order herself. Then when the others came in for their shift, she was disappointed, she may be the bard but she enjoys running a tavern too. I think they have a system where she gets to finish out whatever orders she has in the early morning and then they take over, so we will be the last ones she serves today.” Bull sat back as the barmaid place a mug before them and filled it up with coffee. One good thing that came out of Tevinter was the delicious coffee they had.

Their breakfast arrived and they finished it before Seranni and Cassandra entered the tavern. Her eyes immediately found his and he was glad to see some of the storms in her eyes from the previous night had cleared. They joined their table and Maryden finally began strumming her instrument. The timing couldn’t have been better for Krem, he knew Chief liked to talk, but all he wanted to do was watch the bard sing and listen to her beautiful voice.

“Hello Iron Bull,” Cassandra nodded in greeting.

“Seeker,” he nodded his greeting back.

Side Arm rolled her eyes and sat down next to Bull, forcing Cassandra to sit next to Krem, “you two eat already?” Bull nodded in response and waved over a serving girl to refill his coffee. He wished they had cocoa powder like they did up north, add some of that to your coffee and it made the bitter drink delicious and it helped to wake you up.

***

Seranni watched as Bull’s eyes betrayed that the coffee was too bitter for his tastes. Smiling to herself she pulled out a small jar that she had brought to breakfast ever since Cassandra had given to her. The Seeker had found out that she also liked cocoa powder in her coffee and had kept her in a steady supply. It was nice to have someone take care of her, whether she wished it or not. She decided to just sit back and enjoy it, she could tell that it eased some part of the Seeker’s mind where she was concerned.

“Here,” she placed two spoonfuls in Bull’s coffee and two in her own. Bull watched her as she stirred both mugs of the drinks and watched as she brought the spoon to her mouth and suddenly something else was entering her mouth in his mind’s eye. She noticed his sudden stiffness and glanced at him out of the corner of her eye. He was acting aroused, she quickly scanned the room for a possible cause of this, but only saw him staring at her. She mentally shrugged her observation away, if he were attracted to her, then they would have bedded by now. Hissrad was not one to mince words or hide his intentions despite his name. A small voice in the back of her mind made an observation, that may have been true of Hissrad, but The Iron Bull may be different. She mentally shook herself and refocused herself to the task before her that day, they would be leaving for the Hinterlands.

Besides, it wasn’t like she was a blushing virgin after her time in Skyrim.  _ But he doesn’t know about your time in Skyrim, now does he?  _ And she wouldn’t tell him the particulars of her time in Skyrim, nor her abilities, unless he broke away from the Qun. She hated the distance she had to keep him at, but there was nothing for it. 

They finished breakfast and Krem split off to run the Chargers through their morning drills. Cassandra, Bull, and Seranni made their way to the stables and she turned to Cassandra. “I want you to stay here and try to contact the templars, go there if you have to. I know you want to come with me to the mages, but I want someone I trust to try and make contact with the Templars. We need all the help we can get.”

Cassandra scowled at her for a moment in silence before she begrudgingly nodded, “agreed, and best it was a familiar name and face that attempted contact. In that case you promise me you will be careful, Seranni.”

She nodded solemnly, “I promise, I will be careful.” Cassandra nodded, satisfied and began to get Seranni’s horse ready with her as Sera and Solas walked up.

“Alright let’s get this show on the road,” Sera said jovially and quickly made her way over to a horse that had been saddled already for her. Bull wondered why the Herald’s horse was not ready to go when they arrived, but the other ones were. Before he could wonder too much she answered his question before he had a chance to ask.

“I like to take care of my own mount, Cassandra likes to help,” he nodded at her explanation and glanced to see Solas looking at her with a mixture of sorrow and pride. Sera looked down at her own horse thoughtfully.

Cassandra walked with them all the way to the gates of the valley that Haven rested in, Bull had a feeling that she would stay there for a while even after the group left her sight. Conversation flowed freely between Sera and Bull. Solas kept quiet mostly unless Seranni asked him a question. It seemed random at first, but every so often Seranni would ask him a question about the Fade or how his own style worked for him. Bull realized that she asked him a question every time Solas’ annoyance level got rather high with the silliness of the conversation between Bull and Sera. Pride swelled in his chest at how much his little Saarebas had grown.

They arrived in the Hinterlands and reported to the Inquisition camp on the cliff that overlooked the Crossroads. Seranni walked off to the side to listen to the scout’s report, she leaned over the map as the scout told her of what was currently plaguing the area this time. There were two dragons that had moved into the area and she knew the moment Bull heard dragon because his posture straightened further and his eye glistened with excitement. She asked about the mages and if they had heard anything out of Redcliffe.

“No Your Worship,” the scout began again.

“Ma’am,” she corrected out of habit, if the soldiers insisted in showering her with respect and adulation, then they would call her ‘Ma’am’, not Your Worship or Herald or anything else along those lines. She had never seen much point in titles, they were just there to be flashy so adventurers could impress local villages.

“Apologies, Ma’am, Redcliffe has been closed off since the fighting between the Templars and Mages ran the valley. Since you’ve taken care of that issue, a dragon moved into the valley and there have been reports of very odd rifts in the area.”

She nodded her understanding and returned to her group, the only heavy hitter she had with her was Bull. She didn’t like the idea of facing dragons in a group, but she knew she wouldn’t be able to split away to take care of them. Did no good to sit around wishing for things to be different when things needed to get done and dealt with.

“Alright, so there’s a dragon running rampant in the valley to the west of the Crossroads,” she began and Bull let out a loud whoop of excitement, “and we have to take care of that before heading up to Redcliffe. Since Bull and I are the only ones here that have faced a dragon before, Solas, you and Sera are going to stay back while Bull and I attack it at close range.”

“What do you mean you’ve faced a dragon?” Sera asked them incredulously.

Seranni smiled her small smile at the memory of the Dragon that had flown in and tried to make it’s home in a cave in Seheron. She purposely tried to have an anxious feel around her body, she didn’t want them to know how comfortable she had gotten at facing Dragons by herself.

“Yeah, back when Bull and I worked together the first time. I think we’ll have an easier time of it this time. Not so many people to get in the way this time,” she glanced at Bull and saw the excitement rolling off of him in waves.

“Yeah, let’s go Side Arm,” with that he headed down the path that led to the crossroads and was the quickest way to the valley. She rolled her eyes at him as she followed him. 

Luckily they emerged from the tunnel to the west of the Crossroads that led to the valley. They emerged and heard the telltale screech of a dragon and they all readied their weapons. Bull and Seranni led them through the underbrush and the dragon came into view. It was currently on the ground and it was breathing fire at the ground in a circle.

“Looks like a giant freaking dog, turning in circles like that,” Sera whispered.

“It appears to be attempting to start a nest for itself,” Solas observed.

“Yeah, right in the middle of the road,” Sera whispered back.

“Pashaara, enough, be quiet,” Seranni hissed her command to the two elves. Bull led the way, sneaking around to a better vantage point and Seranni used her hands to tell the other two to stay where she wanted them before joining him. They silently moved through the hills and came around to the opposite side of the dragon so that they flanked the dragon.

Once they were in position, Bull gave a great shout and charged at the dragon. It’s head perked up at Bull’s noise and Seranni snapped a barrier around him as the dragon roared before breathing fire at him.

“Taarsidath-an halsaam!” she heard him shout above the roar of the flames. She shook her head and chuckled to herself at Bull and moved from her hiding place and willed for her magic to create a large Great Axe. She felt the weight of her weapon and nearly grinned like a crazy person. She wasn’t as familiar with her Great Axe as she was with her swords, but she didn’t want to make it too easy. 

She was eternally grateful that the dragon had not taken to the skies and she hadn’t been forced to use Dragon Rend to tether it to the ground. However, there was nothing she could do as the dragon died and she absorbed it's soul. It’s soul joined the chorus of the other dragons from Skyrim and quickly fell to the background as the Dragons talked amongst themselves. 

“That glowy thing still happens, huh,” Bull asked her.

She nodded, not trusting her voice, it was always sensitive and more prone to Shout after the absorption of a Dragon’s soul. 

***

Solas stood in shock at what he had seen. He thought he heard the lilting notes of a flute being played in the distance and he stared at the seemingly human member of their group. Her eyes flashed brightly, but her smile never grew beyond her small smile. He struggled to maintain even breath as he walked, lost in thought behind them as they returned to the Crossroads to inform Inquisition soldiers that the problem was taken care of and they could take care of the carcass.

_ How could she wield such power? What was that glowy bit when the Dragon died? Who the hell were her parents to have produced such a child? She had the power of an Evanuris, and if he didn’t know better he would have said she was a member _ , his thoughts circled around in his mind to the point he was unaware that the object of his wonderings was watching him carefully.

“So what was that you yelled at it, in the beginning? Taarsiddy and Ham salami?” Sera asked.

“Taarsidath-an halsaam? Eh, closest translation is ‘I will bring myself sexual pleasure later while thinking about this with great respect,’” Bull grinned as he translated. He had always wanted to say that while a dragon was breathing fire at him. He glanced at Seranni, she had been the one to make that happen. He followed her gaze and saw that Solas was deep in thought about something and turned back to his conversation with Sera.

“You shouted that while it was breathing fire at you?! Well, shit, remind me not to ever sleep with you, you like it dangerous,” Sera giggled at her own joke and they reached the Crossroads.

Solas finally snapped out of his inner thoughts around the time they were about to reach Redcliffe, lucky for him too otherwise he wouldn’t have seen the way the rift distorted what seemed to be time itself. Seranni closed the rift without a hitch and Solas kept quiet as they were led up the path to the tavern. Apparently a Magister Alexius was in charge now, not Grand Enchanter Fiona. This was not at all what they were expecting if what happened in Val Royeaux was anything to go by. Then again he hadn’t expected to see the power of an Evanuris today, and the day was far from over it seemed.

Seranni was instantly suspicious of the mysterious note that Felix had slipped to her, she showed it to Bull and he shrugged at her, “if it’s a trap, there are easier ones to make at this point. He has us surrounded by people he commands so it makes no sense to make a trap within a trap.”

“Unless your prey knows it’s a trap and disables the first, only to be caught in the second,” she quipped to him.

“Unless your prey is too powerful for any trap you could possibly make,” he quipped back. They had been conversing in this manner off and on the entire trip again and while Solas could understand the point behind it, at that moment he just found it annoying.

“Enough, let us see what this message is and deal with it whether it is a trap or not,” he stormed past them and opened the door of the chantry where they were supposed to meet with their mysterious note sender.

Seranni and Bull took note of Solas’ mood and continued their conversation mutely, ‘but if you know your prey is that powerful, then your trap would accommodate.’

Sera watched them for a moment and laughed at the funny faces they made until they all saw the rift inside the Chantry and the lone mage that was fighting against the demons that poured out of it. They each split up, Bull and Seranni to the front, while Solas kept barriers over himself, Sera, and the mystery mage.

Solas could hear the music of the flute again as Seranni used her power more openly than even against the dragon. She arched her lightning across multiple demons, but not a single bolt branched in the direction of anyone fighting against the demons. He hadn’t seen that level of control since his days among the Evanuris and the flute sounded louder until it drowned everything else out. For a moment all he saw was Seranni turning every which way, attacking all around her while keeping her allies safe. Except it wasn’t Seranni he saw, it was Mythal that he saw. Blood red hair flashing out as she protected those around her. It had been the moment he had realized he was in love with the matron of the Evanuris and had locked his heart away. She had belonged to Elgar’nan, the patron of the Evanuris. He narrowed his eyes and reality snapped back around him. She closed the rift with practiced ease and they turned to face the mysterious mage that they had found.

“Fascinating, how does that work, exactly?” Seranni stared at the mage as he continued, “You don’t even know, do you? You just wiggle your fingers, and boom! Rift closes,” he seemed cheery despite the method of their meeting.

“Rule number 8,” was all she said in response.

Bull quirked a small smile, “never assume anything.”

“Rules? Ah, no matter. I am Dorian of House Pavus, most recently of Minrathous. How do you do?”

“Ugh more mages, it’s like mage central ‘round here,” Sera burst out.

“Well I assume you came to meet with the mages, what were you expecting? Nugs? Or perhaps Templars?” Dorian asked her sarcastically. “Magister Alexius was once my mentor, so my assistance should be valuable - as I’m sure you can imagine.”

“So why’re you helping us? Shouldn’t you be with your magister mentor?” Sera asked haughtily.

“He  _ was _ my mentor, dear. Was. Meaning he is not my mentor any longer, not for some time. Look, you must know there’s danger, that should be obvious even without the note. Let’s start with Alesius claiming the allegiance of the mage rebels out from under you. As if by magic, yes? Which is exactly right. To reach Redcliffe before the Inquisition, Alexius distorted time itself.”

“But then how do we remember Grand Enchanter Fiona coming up to us in Val Royeaux?” Seranni asked.

“You ask wonderful questions my dear. Honestly, I have no idea. When Alexius and I worked on this in Minrathous, it was pure theory. Now he has made it a reality by using the giant hole in the sky as the power source for this magic,” Dorian explained.

“Which makes it wildly unstable and is probably unraveling the world,” Seranni said sarcastically.

“It’s scary how accurate you are.”

“Rule number 8.”

“Uh huh, right. What I don’t understand is why he’s doing this? Rip apart time, just to gain a few hundred lackeys?”

“He’s not doing it for them,” Felix walked up and joined them.

“Took you long enough, is he getting suspicious?”

“No, but I shouldn’t have played the illness card, I thought he’d be fussing over me all day,” he turned to address Seranni, “My father’s joined a cult, Tevinter supremacists, they call themselves ‘Venatori.’ I can tell you one thing for sure: whatever he’s done for them, he’s done it to get to you.”

“All this for me, and here I didn’t get Alexius anything,” she commented.

“Get him a fruit basket, everybody loves those,” Dorian quipped back.

Felix sighs at them, “they’re obsessed with you, but I don’t know why. Perhaps because you survived the Temple of Sacred Ashes?”

“You can close the rifts, maybe there’s a connection?” Dorian theorized aloud, “Or they see you as a threat?”

“If the Venatori are behind those rifts, or the Breach in the sky, they’re even worse than I thought,” Felix commented.

“So, now we know that I am their target. First step in dismantling a trap is to know it’s there. Now that we know what to expect, how can we turn this to our advantage,” she asked the group, mainly Bull which she indicated with a tilt of her head.

Bull hummed a moment before Dorian interrupted them, “I can’t stay in Redcliffe. Alexius doesn’t know I’m here, and I want to keep it that way for now. When you’re ready to deal with him, I want to be there. I’ll meet you in the Crossroads in two days time.”

With that he turned to leave but not before turning back, “Oh and Felix? Try not to get yourself killed.”

“There are worse things than death, Dorian,” Felix said sadly.

Seranni nodded her agreement before they all left the Chantry and went their separate ways. Her group made their way south back to the Crossroads and she decided that a Dragon and a plot to use time magic to get to her was enough for the rest of her group to handle. They would rest for the night, take care of the other Dragon tomorrow, meet with Dorian the day after, then head back to Haven.

“We’ll rest here for the night, tomorrow we’ll take care of the second dragon Bull,” she informed him.

“Alright, sounds good, I’ll go put up the tent,” Bull began to make his way back towards their gear when Seranni grabbed his arm.

“Actually, we don’t have to, last time we were here we helped out a couple that live here and they offered their home to agents of the Inquisition any time they were needed. Josephine sent word to them beforehand and they are expecting us,” she nodded towards a cabin up on the hill, right next to the trickle of a waterfall.

Bull shifted uneasily as his hard-on from watching Seranni kill that dragon still hadn’t left him. He ducked low and entered the cabin to see four beds set up in the middle of this couple’s living room. Words couldn’t describe the pride he felt that Seranni had people willing to open their homes to her, she had come a long way for a Saarebas of the Qun. Hell, she had come a long way for anyone and he still wondered how she had lived through it all. Then to continually be placed in charge of such a large organization already. He shook his head as he settled himself upside down on the bed left for him.

Sera gave him an odd look, “what? Can’t sleep unless you’re upside down?”

“His horns prevent him from sleeping the other way and not gouge the wall,” Seranni responded, 

“It’s why I made sure to leave him a bed that wasn’t against more than one wall.”

“Oh, hadn’t thought of that.”

“Most southerners don’t,” was the only response before she lay still and manipulated her breathing to even out. Bull caught the light twitches that betrayed her feigned sleep, he watched as Solas fell asleep then Sera. He watched her lay in her bed stock still and it seemed as if she was trying to force herself to sleep. He remembered when he placed her in her sleeping bonds in Seheron and she had almost always been asleep before he finished the bindings. He swallowed past the sudden lump in his throat and immediately sat up. He quietly got out of his bed and bundled up his blanket so it wouldn’t drag on the floor. He tapped the foot of her bed on the wood once to warn her of his presence and her eyes immediately flew open.

‘What are you doing?’

‘I can help,’ then he took a deep breath and nodded at her.

She mimicked his breath and he kneeled at her bedside, pulled back her blanket and placed his blanket on top of it at the foot of her bed. He crossed her arms across her stomach and bent her knees, crossing her legs across the calf and resting her on her side. The familiar position had her eyes beginning to droop, he felt much of the tension leave his shoulders as he saw her reaction. He picked up his blanket and wrapped it around her legs, holding them in place. He then manipulated her to a kneeling position and he wrapped her blanket around her upper body and lay her back down on her side. He then carefully took the braid out of her hair that she had left it in. He made sure to remember the braid as he undid it and fanned her hair out on the pillow behind her head. He set the hairband carefully on the table that rested in the middle of the room, he turned around in time to see her relax her eyes closed. She had been fighting to keep them open to watch him take care of her hairband, he smiled to himself at the cuteness of her actions.


	11. Katari Ataashi

The next morning Seranni woke from the best sleep she had gotten since Seheron. She lay in her cocoon for a moment and heard Bull tap the foot of her bed. She looked up at him grateful beyond words and let him manipulate her body to undo her bindings and once freed she stretched, arching her back and pulling her shirt tight against her chest. Bull turned and padded his way over to the table he had set her hairband on and when he brought it back to her he watched as she deftly wrapped her hair up into her braid.

Moments later the entire house was awake and they were on their way to take care of the second dragon in the Hinterlands. Bull and Seranni sat atop a ridge overlooking the valley that held the dragon, both silent as they talked through their facial expressions. Finally Bull rolled his eyes and nodded followed by Seranni’s nod.

“First we are going to charge the dragon, just as before you two will stay back and attack from a distance. You’re going to have to deal with dodging fire this time, so pay attention,” Bull glanced at Solas with a pointed look, he ducked his head sheepishly, “Kay, then once the dragon starts acting weaker Solas and I will break away and head up the hill that we think it will retreat to. Once Seranni and Sera weaken it to that point, Solas and I will be there waiting for it.”

“Why not do what you did earlier, with the see through axe thing?” Sera demanded.

“We are, but this is a much more open area and there isn’t much cover, besides Bull wants to kill this one,” Seranni lightly teased Bull.

This battle went much like the first and went just as they had planned, when the dragon retreated, Bull was there waiting for it. By the time Seranni and Sera caught up to them on the hill, Bull had just delivered the killing blow. Seranni walked closer to Bull and suddenly he threw his axe to the ground and pulled her to him. He pulled her flush against him and kissed her hard.

It was an incredible sensation, being kissed as she absorbed the Dragon’s soul. Her body always felt like every nerve was on fire when it happened normally, Bull’s kiss nearly made it unbearable. Her body moved of it’s own accord when her arms wrapped themselves around his neck and pulled him closer. After what felt like an eternity he released her and stood an arm's length from her. He cleared his throat before saying, “Katari Ataashi.”

She stood there unable to move as he walked away from her and Sera bounced over to her, “Hey you, that was fun!”

She smiled her smile and said a muted, “yeah.”

They began to make their way out of the clearing that the Dragon had claimed when Bull pulled her back and motioned for Solas and Sera to continue on.

“I didn’t report the glowing thing in Seheron and I’m not about to start now, but that doesn’t mean I’m not curious.”

She sighed, “I know.”

“So, tell me.”

“Can’t.”

“Can’t or won’t? Side Arm, the glowing doesn’t freak you out. You know what it means, what it does to you. What is it?”

“I’m sorry, but so long as you serve the Qun, I can’t tell you.” Bull opens his mouth to argue, but she continues before he has a chance, “I’m sorry, but no. I know you covered for me in Seheron, but if I told you and they found out that you knew… They’d probably kill you.”

Bull mulled over her words for a moment, it had to have something to do with her ‘By the Nine’ comments.  _ What could all this mean? _ “Okay.” Bull was about to lead her back to the elves of their group until she stopped him with a touch to his arm. He knew it was ridiculous, but her touch felt like a hot iron on his arm and made his cock twitch in his pants. 

“Why do the Tamassrans raise all the children? Here in the south and in just about every other place I’ve been to, they have families and home,” he was surprised by her questions. It made sense, he supposed, that she wouldn’t know some of these things that he had grown up knowing.

“Families are considered selfish and are not good for the whole of society, thus we have Tamassrans who raise the children, they assign children their jobs, they have some who are there to eh, pop your cork when you need it, they control the breeding programs as well.”

“Do they know from birth if you’re going to be Saarebas?” she asked so quietly that Bull was almost unsure whether she had said anything. He heard the ouch of horror in her tone and answered as quickly as he could.

“No, they don’t even breed the Saarebas. How it’s supposed to be is that Saarebas aren’t blamed for being Saarebas, Dathrasi should have cared for you as if you were an extension of his body. Why?”

“My T-Tama said that she knew I was going to be Saarebas. She said she had hoped that my magic would have manifested later than it had,” her voice had caught when she spoke of her Tama. She was angry with herself over her voice catching, it had been years.  _ Isn’t Time supposed to heal all wounds? If so, then why does it still hurt so much? _

Bull’s hand twitched and Seranni knew that he wanted to hold her, comfort her. His kiss still affected her, but she wanted nothing more than for him to hold her just then. She took a step closer and he immediately wrapped one arm around her slim build. 

“Excuse yourself, whatever you said and what I did, same difference to me,” Sera was saying to Solas when they returned.

“I’d hoped, well, our people can sometimes feel the rhythm of the language despite lacking the vocabulary,” to Seranni, Solas sounded lonely.

“Uh huh? Know what else is good? Words that mean things. Like these. Words,” she drew out the last word as if she were talking to an idiot child.

“Fenedhis lasa,” was his exasperated response.

Sera blew a raspberry at him in response, Bull and Seranni approached and she cleared her throat and spoke to Solas, “aneth ara.”

Bull watched as Solas seemed to perk back up from whatever his conversation had been and begin speaking with Seranni in elvish. Bull couldn’t hold back a chuckle when Sera suddenly shouted, “two of you doesn’t make this normal!”

“Where did you learn elvish?”

“Didn’t, not  _ elvish _ per se at least, kind of an off shoot language of elvish that is close enough that I can passably hold a conversation.”

They made their way back to the Crossroads and busied themselves with helping the refugees settling in and making sure everyone was fed. Bull watched as Seranni made it a point to feed the sick or injured that didn’t have the strength to feed themselves. He overheard some of the healers speculating that she must have been a healer before to have had such a practiced hand at feeding others. Bull swallowed the lump that suddenly appeared in his throat at the thought and once she was done he walked with her back up to the cabin they were staying in.

“You have the power to do so, why not just heal them all and be done with it?” Solas asked Seranni as she entered the cabin.

“Because if they worship the ground I walk on just for stabilizing a giant hole in the sky, then how are they going to react when I suddenly start healing everyone back to perfect health all of a sudden. Besides I did heal each of them a little as I went by.” Bull’s eye widened at that. He knew she was great at being subtle with her magic, but to have reached the point where he hadn’t even noticed what she was doing was unnerving indeed.

“You show a wisdom beyond your years, Da’len.”

“It is not the quantity of life that measures your experience,” she told him before she set to helping the woman make their food, asking questions about cooking and the cabin was filled with questions, explanations, and the woman’s laughter as Sera joined them.


	12. In Hushed Whispers Part 1

The way back, Seranni’s time was mostly monopolized by Solas. He was curious about her power and had begun talking to her about magical theory and she impressed him. Not only was she able to keep up with him and understand what he was talking about, but she was able to do so in Elvhen. He had learned that she knew many languages, her Elvhen was broken in certain places, but she  _ was _ able to maintain a coherent conversation with him. She had an eagerness to learn that while it may not have been shown on the rest of her face or body, but in her eyes he saw that great thirst to learn. The power of her thirst gave him pause for a moment before he realized that it reminded him of his own thirst for knowledge.

Bull and Seranni made their way up the hill to the Chantry and the war room inside. Once they entered they saw Cassandra already there discussing things with Cullen, Lelianna, and Josephine. Cassandra stopped mid sentence and went to greet Seranni. Cassandra first touched Seranni on the shoulder before enveloping her in a bone crushing hug.  _ Apparently Cassandra missed me. _ Seranni smiled to herself, it had been quite a long time for someone to worry about her coming home. She swallowed thoughts of a certain raven haired vampire that she had left in Skyrim. 

After a few moments, Cullen cleared his throat and Bull glanced at him in annoyance. Cassandra pulled away from Seranni and faced the group while still keeping one arm wrapped around the other woman’s shoulders.

“As I was saying-” Lelianna interrupted Cassandra with a raised hand.

“Bull, you will need to leave.”

Seranni looked at Lelianna annoyedly for a moment before nodding, “just wait outside, please.”

“By Josephine’s door,” Lelianna spoke before Seranni glanced at the spymaster in annoyance. As he left, Bull rested his hand on her arm and lightly squeezed.

“There, happy?” Seranni asked her blankly.

“Quite,” was Lelianna only reply.

“As I was saying,” Cassandra said to get everyone attention, “I talked with quite a few templars, but aside from Ser Baris and his squadron, I don’t think that we will be receiving any help from the templars.”

“Okay,” Seranni nodded her understanding and trusting Cassandra’s judgment, “I assume your spies have sent word ahead of us, detailing what happened?”

Lelianna nodded and told everyone else what had happened, once she began talking about possibly attacking the castle directly, Cullen protested, “We don’t have the manpower to attack the castle directly, either we find another way in or we send the Herald to the Templars to try again.”

Cassandra looked at him hard, “Redcliffe is in the hands of a Magister! This cannot be allowed to stand.”

“A letter from Alexius arrived asking for the Herald of Andraste, by name. It’s an obvious trap,” Josephine commented.

“How nice of him to flaunt his trap,” Seranni quipped.

“A Tevinter Magister controls Redcliffe, invites us to talk, and some of us want to do nothing,” Lelianna looked pointedly at Cullen.

“Not this again,” Josephine sighed.

“Redcliffe Castle is one of the most defensible fortresses in all of Ferelden, it has withstood thousands of attacks,” Cullen looked directly at Seranni, “If you go in there you’ll die, and we’ll lose the only means of closing these rifts. I won’t allow it.”

“Rules number 8 and 16,” they all looked at her confused until she rolled her eyes, “Never assume anything and if your opponent thinks they have the upper hand, break it.”

Approval shone in Lelianna’s eyes while Cassandra looked at Seranni as yet another side of her revealed itself to the seeker, “how many rules do you have exactly?”

Seranni shrugged, “about twenty, maybe?”

“What are they rules for,” Cullen asked, intrigued.

“Life,” was her only reply.

“So how do you propose we go about this, Lady Herald?” Lelianna asked.

“Don’t know, I’ve never planned an assault on a keep before, kind of why I wanted Bull here,” Seranni looked at Lelianna pointedly, keeping her tone accusatory so the spymaster wouldn’t think to not believe the lie.

“What if we had another way in?” Cassandra spoke up.

“There’s nothing that would help us,” Cullen shook his head sadly.

“Wait, there’s a secret passage into the castle, an escape route for the family. It’s too narrow for troops, but we could send agents through,” Lelianna began to sound excited.

“Too risky, those agents would be discovered before they even reached the Magister,” Culled rebutted.

“That’s why we need a distraction, perhaps the envoy Alexius wants so badly?” Lelianna eyed Seranni again.

“Keep attention on the Herald, while we disable the Magister’s defenses. It’s a gamble, but it might work,” Cullen thought aloud.

Suddenly there was a knock at the door and Josephine opened it to reveal Bull’s hulking figure, “Hey, that ‘Vint is back and says he wants to help now.”

“Enter, both of you,” Lelianna looked at Seranni sharply, “we aren’t discussing anything he didn’t already know and his input will be invaluable,” Seranni stared down Lelianna and she backed down with approval shining in her eyes again. It was getting to be exhausting to deal with these people.  _ If only I could storm the keep by myself _ , but she knew that no one would let her sneak away long enough to do that.

Cullen eyed Dorian suspiciously, “your spies will never get past Alexius’ magic without my help. Since I assume that since you’re currently planning an assault on Redcliffe, that you will be dealing with Alexius. I’m coming along,” Dorian smiled cockily.

“The plan puts you in the most danger, we can’t in good conscience order you to do this,” Cullen looked to her sadly.

“You think I’ve been following orders all this time,” the lack of emotion unnerved Bull and from the Seeker’s sudden rigidness, it wasn’t a good sign for her. They needed to end this meeting quickly. 

“Now that we have a plan in motion, Lelianna and Cullen can handle the details of that while Josephine responds to Alexius’ letter,” Cassandra quickly led Seranni out of the war room after that and Bull followed them.

Once they left the Chantry Bull saw that the only reason Seranni was walking with them was because Cassandra’s arm had not left her shoulders, “has she been like this before?”

Cassandra glanced down at the woman in her arms, “Yes, when the Inquisition started I convinced her that it did not look good for her to wear her collar. She said that she would only do it if I agreed to use my smite on her whenever she asked,” she sighed and looked away and Bull opened the cabin door that Cassandra led them to. “I agreed to the terms, but when she asked me to smite her it unnerved me. I-I couldn’t do it to her, she begged and pleaded, but I couldn’t do it. So in the Hinterlands I didn’t smite her until about a month after we had arrived. I woke up one morning and saw that she had stayed up all night instead of waking anyone else up for their watch. In a ring surrounding us was a ring of burnt corpses. One was once a person of some sort, I asked her what had happened and she responded in that same voice you heard today. All she said was that she kept watch and nothing disturbed our sleep.”

He saw how deeply troubled the Seeker was from the retelling of events, but Bull didn’t know how to respond to that. He knew she needed pain to cast her spells appropriately, but for her to be like that without it was terrifying for him. He watched as the Seeker led her to the middle of the cabin and sat herself on the bed in the cabin. She drew her sword and stabbed it into the floor and leaned against it. He saw the moment that Cassandra activated her ability. Seranni’s rigidness melted away and as peace slowly settled across her features, Bull looked to Cassandra and saw that the Seeker was leaning heavily on her sword. When the Seeker’s power ran out she collapsed onto the bed unconscious and Seranni blinked at the Seeker for a moment before she moved to her side. Once satisfied that the Seeker was only exhausted she turned and her eyes widened at Bull.

“It feels more like the collar did,” she walked over to the desk that sat on the opposite side of the cabin. She opened a drawer and pulled out her collar, she stared at it for a moment before she placed it back in the drawer and slammed it closed, “I look around and I see other mages that are different from me. Their magic leaves a sour taste in my mouth, Vivienne’s barriers over me would leave it, in Sky- where i’ve been living, it was more of a savory taste. Being around Dorian and all those mages at Redcliffe made it feel like I was sucking on a freshly picked lemon.” Seranni glared before her, not looking at anything in particular.

“Hissrad, I was over eighteen years old when the sour taste I had been living with my whole life changed and I figured out a little of what was going on.”

“Bull-”

“Cassandra’s asleep, no one is here to hear us, and so long as you serve the Qun,” she paused and stared at him with a finality that he hadn’t experienced very often. “So long as you serve the Qun, you will be Hissrad.”

Bull’s brow furrowed at her statement, the finality of her voice spoke volumes. So long as he served the Qun he would always be Hissrad, undercover or not. So long as he was Hissrad, there would be a distance between them. Sure, she tried to bridge that gap, but at moments like earlier, she had to change her statement or hide something from him. Despite her trust, she didn’t fully trust him. So long as he was with the Qun, he would never get  _ close _ to her.

She suddenly let out a long string of curses in another language. Bull stared as the language that sprang forth from her mouth, while completely unfamiliar,  _ spoke _ to him. If he had been paying attention, he would have noticed the faint echo of power that lie dormant in her voice when she had spoken. 

“Lelianna is grooming me to lead this fucking thing and she doesn’t even know how fucked up I am.” She stared down at the glowing mark on her left hand. Her eyes said that she was warring with herself over something, but when she spoke it sounded resigned, as if she really didn’t want to admit what she was saying.

“I can’t do this alone, Hissrad. I need you, I need Cassandra. I need you both to keep me in line. You can both read me to an extent, so I need you to help Cassandra. You’re an old hand at reading me and my emotional state. Things may be different, but the base emotions are the same. I-

“Of course,” he interrupted her, she nodded her thanks and they sat in silence as they waited for the Seeker to wake up. At one point they started up their game of quips non verbally and managed to keep it going until Cassandra woke up and it broke Seranni’s concentration.

“I win,” he teased her, she rolled her eyes at him and they all walked to the tavern together and spent the rest of their day teaching Seranni to use  _ physical _ weapons. She knew she preferred the use of one handed swords, one in each hand. What she didn’t see was that as she was going through the steps they taught her was Cassandra glance at Bull.

‘You get her one, I get her one,’ her look said.

He grinned at her and nodded once as his agreement and began to think of what kind of sword he would get her. That night he nabbed one of the waitresses to spend the night with, but instead he dreamed of Seranni, again.

***

His lips met hers and he moaned at the taste of her as his tongue explored her mouth. He held her hands above her head with one hand as his other grasped her breast and kneaded the nipple between his fingers. The memory of her killing the dragon in the Hinterlands and their shared kiss after the second played through his mind and he growled as his member entered her. She screamed in pain and pleasure at his size and roughness. Here he knew he desired her, here he allowed himself to have her. Something about her called to him on a soul-deep level. A level he never let near the surface when he was awake, but he wasn’t awake now. 

Her nails felt especially sharp as she clawed down his back and he arched away from her hands and into her body, driving him deeper within her. He pulled away from her completely, causing her to whimper at the sudden loss of sensation, he grinned as he easily flipped her onto her stomach and raised her hips into the air. He once again slammed his member inside her without warning and watched in satisfaction as her fingers clawed at the sheets above her head. He was glad he knew he was dreaming or the scales that appeared all across her back would have frightened him. Instead the appearance of the scales made him think  _ Dragon _ and spurred him to increase his ferocity.

He watched out of the corner of his eye as the sheets wove around her wrists and tied them securely above her head. The sheet attached to the bedpost and he could feel her pleasure mounting in leaps and bounds, just as his was.

***

Just as their pleasure became nearly unbearable, they awoke from their beds and jolted upright. Bull looked down and saw a waterfall of red hair, for a moment he panicked before remembering the night before and separating dream from reality. He ran his hand over his face, this needed to change. He couldn’t keep bedding women that looked like her, a small part of him told him he should just bed her and be done with it. That was wrong wasn’t it, he practically raised her for seven years, he watched her grow up. He knew some of what she had been through, it was wrong of him to want her.

But she needed him, she needed him to ‘keep her in line.’ He had been watching her as she had interacted with everyone they came across, she never reacted with arousal. Except for the time by the pond and after he had kissed her. Fuck, why did he have to do that. Then with everything she had said last night, she understood she was different from everyone else. That no one else could truly understand what she had gone through unless they were inside her head. A thought occurred to him and he began to set his mind to thinking of a way for him to offer what he wanted, but to make it her choice.


	13. In Hushed Whispers Part 2

They arrived at Redcliffe castle, but when their greeter tried to send everyone else away Seranni refused to leave them. Not that Cassandra or Bull had any intention of leaving her to meet this Magister alone. Varric just hung in the back and kept quiet as he observed Seranni. They were led to the main chamber of the castle and were announced by the servant.

“My Lord Magister, Agents of the Inquisition have arrived.”

“My friend,” the magister responded jovially, “So good to see you again, and your associates of course. I’m sure we can work out some arrangement that is equitable to all parties.”

“Are my people to have no say in deciding their fate,” Fiona spoke up from the side.

“You gave up your voice when you handed him your lives,” Seranni responded coldly.

The former Grand Enchanter ducked her head in shame and stepped back to the side as Alexius started talking, “too right you are. Now, the Inquisition needs mages to close the breach and I have them. So, what shall you offer in exchange?”

She looked at him innocently, “nothing. I’m going to take the mages and leave.”

Felix sighed, “it’s over Father, they know everything.”

“Felix, what have you done?”

“He didn’t do anything except help us to dismantle your trap before arriving here, oops.” Bull held back the grin at Seranni’s humor in this situation.

“You are nothing but a thief, tampering with magics beyond your understanding,” Alexius spat at them.

Cassandra, Bull, and Seranni all said in unison, “Rule number 8.”

“You walk into my stronghold with your stolen mark, a gift you don’t even understand, and think you’re in control?!” he asked them incredulously, ignoring the odd behavior, “you are nothing but a mistake.”

“Mistake means that there was a goal in mind in the first place, what was supposed to happen?” Seranni asked.

“It was to be the Elder One’s moment. You were unworthy to even stand in his presence.”

“Father, please, do you even hear yourself right now? Do you know what you sound like?” Felix pleaded with his father.

“He sounds exactly like the sort of villainous cliche everyone expects us to be,” Dorian sauntered up and Seranni watched as Lelianna’s agents quickly and quietly dispatched the venatori stationed throughout the hall.

“Dorian, I gave you a chance to be a part of this. You turned me down. The Elder One has power you would not believe. He will raise the Imperium from it’s own ashes,” Alexius said reverently.

“Do you hear yourself, this is exactly the kind of thing we talked about never wanting to happen,” Dorian pleaded with the magister.

“The Elder One will make the world bow to mages once more. He will rise to Godhood and Tevinter will rule from the Boeric Ocean to the Frozen Seas.”

The man before her, this Alexius, worshiping this Elder One and his apparent claim to Godhood angered her. She had had enough of gods and men attempting godhood for a lifetime in Skyrim. Then again, that hadn’t really been a man, more like a dragon, a vampire, and an ancient Dragonborn all trying to take over the world.  _ By the nine that sounds like the beginning of a bad joke, ‘a dragon, a vampire, and a dragonborn walk into a bar.’ _ Seranni shook her head of her thoughts and turned her anger towards the man before her.

“Pashaara,” she glared at the magister and gathered strands of her magic around her, she infused her voice with her power as she spoke, “your Elder One makes claims he knows nothing of. This Elder One will die by my hand, just as your Venatori agents lie dead at your feet.”

“No,” he whispered, “NO!” he shouted and began charging a spell through an amulet of some sort. Dorian reacted quickly and sent his magic out in an attempt to dispel Alexius’ spell before it went off. There was a loud bang and suddenly Dorian and Seranni were calf deep in still standing water. Before they had a moment to understand what had happened they were attacked by what looked to be Venatori agents. Seranni quickly burned both soldiers in a column of fire and turned to Dorian who looked to be in shock at her blatant power. 

“Where are we? Where is everyone else?” she demanded. 

“You always ask such good questions my dear. Displacement, perhaps? The rift that Alexius opened up must have sent us somewhere, but where? The closest confluence of magic?” Seranni remained silent as Dorian ran through his theories aloud.

“What if we weren’t moved through space? Time has been wonky ever since we arrived at Redcliffe.”

“Once again, you raise an excellent point, it’s not simply where. It’s when! By using the amulet as his focus, Alexius sent us through time.”

“Now begs the questions of forwards or backwards, and how far?”

“Where do you keep all those wonderful questions?”

Seranni rolled her eyes at him and moved to leave the cell they were in. From the feel of the area, Seranni knew they were underground and that they needed to head upwards to find answers to their questions. As they explored the dungeons she extended her magical senses to the area surrounding her.  _ We’re still in Redcliffe, but it feels totally different.  _ Seranni winced suddenly as they came upon a cell that finally held a person and Seranni’s face hardened once she saw that it was Grand Enchanter Fiona. She looked to be half dead as what appeared to be red lyrium grew out of her body.

“You-You're alive? How? I saw you disappear into the rift,” Fiona spoke weakly, as if it were a strain to catch her breath.

“The lyrium, the red stuff, it’s alive isn’t it?” Dorian looked at Seranni as if she had grown a second head.

“It’s a disease. The longer you are near it, eventually you become this. Then they harvest your corpse for more."

“Can you tell us the date, specifically the year,” Dorian asked her urgently.

“Harvestmere, 9:42 Dragon,” Fiona struggled to talk more and more as their conversation progressed.

“9:42? Then we’ve only missed a year!” Dorian exclaimed. “I take it we are still in Redcliffe Castle?” At Fiona’s nod he continued, “Then if the amulet was the same as the one I worked on with Alexius in Minrathous, then I may be able to send us back from when we came from.”

“Then none of this would happen,” Seranni thought to herself.

“Please, you must stop this from happening,” Fiona pleaded with them, but Seranni had begun walking away. She now had a plan, find the others that were trapped here, find Alexius, get back to her time and take care of this Elder One so that he wasn’t trying to kill her anymore.  _ Sounds easy enough _ . 

They approached another cell and Seranni immediately ran to the bars of the cell and used her magic to quickly melt the lock. “Seranni! You’re alive? I saw you disappear through a rift, you were gone!” Cassandra hugged her close and she hugged the Seeker back, just as tightly.

“Alexius sent us forward in time, I need help getting to him and Dorian can cast a spell to send us back. We can fix this,” Seranni looked up at the tall warrior worriedly. She heard the song of the red lyrium emanating from Cassandra. Cassandra nodded and led them to Varric’s cell next.

“Andraste’s knickers, you’re alive?” Varric exclaimed as they set him free.

They continued on their way and Seranni began to hear singing in the distance, “Three hundred bottle of beer on the wall, three hundred bottles of beer. Take one down, pass it around, two-hundred ninety nine bottles of beer on the wall.” Seranni took off at a dead run and left Dorian shouting after her as Cassandra kept silent.

“Hissrad!” Seranni quickly melted his lock as she had done for Cassandra and as soon as he was free he pulled her into his arms and smashed their lips together. He finished his kiss and leaned his forehead against hers.

“I don’t care if you’re just a figment of my imagination this time. I don’t care if they are making you appear before me again, taunting me with freedom. I can’t do this anymore, I can’t resist anymore,” she held him tightly against her as he leaned against her. He sounded so broken that her heart wept. His arms trembled as they held her and she placed her hand on his arms. 

“Bull, it’s me,” she spoke gently and with a chuckle, “ask me something that only I would know.”

He didn’t ask her a question like she expected, but instead said only one word, “Kateri.” 

Her throat clenched as the soft hope that she heard in his voice, “Ataashi.”

Suddenly he kissed her again and this time didn’t stop until Cassandra cleared her throat and Seranni turned to see the Seeker giving her a teasing look as Dorian looked between them looking intrigued. “Well that’s interesting!”

Seranni rolled her eyes and moved to leave Bull’s embrace, but he held fast, “give us a moment, would you guys?”

Cassandra nodded and ushered the other men out of the room and once they left Seranni turned back to Bull, “What is it?”

“I saw you disappear into a rift, there was nothing I could do to stop it. For all I knew, you were dead and there was no reason to remain. Yet I couldn’t leave, I couldn’t leave this place, no matter how crazy it was making me,” he brushed the back of his hand against the side of her face, “took me about five seconds after you disappeared for me to realize what I felt for you. It didn’t go away when you were gone. I thought it would.” He swallowed nervously as he stared into her eyes, “I love you, Kadan. I have since I first laid eyes on you again in the Storm Coast.”

“K-Kadan?” she wondered if she had heard him right, he was calling her his center. His heart, her own thudded in her chest, reminding her that she had her own heart too and it was screaming at her to let go and let him catch her. She didn’t know if she could ask that of him, the question seemed to be all over her face since Bull kissed her again just then. Hard stone pressed against her back as her front was assaulted by the man in front of her.

“You don’t have to ask if i’m already there to catch you, I know you’ve been struggling with what you’ve been feeling since I came back into your life. I can smell it on you, I can read it in your expressions,” he looked deeply into her eyes. “I can feel it in your soul, the mirror of my own.”

“You’re dying,” she said after she had processed his words.

“Doesn’t mean what I’m saying isn’t true, won’t be true once you return back to- that other version of history. I’ll be gone, but you’ll still have him. He needs you, more than he realizes,” his voice broke as he said his words to her. “Just think over my words here, don’t waste time. Life is too short.”

Her lips quirked into a small smile before his face pressed against hers once more. The tilted her head slightly and he seemed to fight with himself before finally stepping back from her and releasing her from being pinned against the wall. They left the area with Bull automatically falling into step behind her. They returned as Cassandra was explaining that apparently this Elder One planned on assassinating the empress of Orlais and raging across Thedas with a demon army out of the west. They made plans to find Lelianna and made their way to the Spymaster. 

They heard what was happening with Lelianna before they found her. “There is no Maker. The Elder One has taken all that was His and will soon rule from His city,” a male gruff voice sounded through the halls.

“That still doesn’t make him a God,” was Lelianna’s reply.

“There is no God but the Elder One. The Maker is dead. Say it!” the closer they got, the more details they could hear, like the smacks of fists on flesh. They quietly opened the door that led to Lelianna, with Seranni in the lead. She watched as a Venatori agent picked up a dagger from the table and hold it against Lelianna’s throat.

“You will break,” he growled at her.

“I will die first,” came her stubborn reply, the man turned at the sudden noise that Dorian made when he tripped over a wayward box on the ground, “or you will.” Lelianna lifted her legs and wrapped them around the neck of her tormentor. He struggled against her for a moment before he stopped and fell to the ground dead. Seranni ran over to his corpse and lifted the keys from his belt and began to undo her cuffs.

“You’re alive! How can this be?”

Seranni looked her dead in the eye and simply said, “time magic.”

Lelianna considered the woman before her for a moment before nodding. “You have weapons?”

Seranni nodded and Lelianna went over to a bow that hung on the wall behind them, “don't you want to know how we got here,” Dorian asked.

“No,” Lelianna sighed, “I know enough. You mages wonder why people always fear you.” She had spoken this bit directly to Dorian while glancing at Seranni sympathetically. “No one should have this kind of power,” Lelianna shook her head and joined their group as they headed out of the dungeons and lower parts of the castle.

It seemed as if the castle was made to be a maze on the inside and it actually reminded Seranni of the complex infrastructure of the compounds in Par Vollen. She shook the comparison from her mind and they continued on their way. They discovered that the door to Alexius’ chamber would open with these red lyrium shards that Cassandra and Bull refused to let her so much as touch. They opened the door and Seranni was not surprised when Lelianna killed Felix, or rather what was left of him. However, when Alexius used his magic to blast Lelianna back, Seranni placed a barrier around the former spymaster to cushion the blow.

Her anger from apparently a  _ year _ ago returned and her eyes seemed to glow as she turned her attention to the man before them. She used her magicka to lift the amulet away from Alexius. He immediately tried to battle for the amulet, but she let forth her magic and easily swatted away his attempts at an attack. She was far too angry to hold back and the only one that would know of her true power and be of any real consequence would be Dorian. He wouldn’t dare tell people what she could really do, especially after she floated the amulet in front of Dorian and promptly engulfed Alexius in a pillar of fire.

“Cast your spell,” was all she said before Alexius burned in a pyre of fire that scorched the high ceilings.

Dorian shakingly took the amulet and began focusing his energy into the amulet. Suddenly the ground shook and they heard a dragon roar, Seranni looked to Bull and saw no excitement on his face. Bad timing for a dragon, sure. But it was still a dragon, unless it was not a dragon but one of those archdemons she had heard about. Those things that started Blights and looked like dragons.

“The Elder One, he comes for you, Kadan,” Bull stood closer to Seranni and she turned to face him.

“We will give you as much time as we have breath,” Cassandra spoke encouragingly and headed out the door with Varric following her.

“You have as much time as I have arrows,” Lelianna spoke before following them.

Only Bull remained with them for a moment, “when I walk through the door, I’m going to seal it. Place a barrier around it and don’t let it up until you are gone.” he began to pull away from her until she grabbed him and pulled him back.

“You’ll die,” she whispered.

“I’m already dead, Kadan. Just a walking corpse, a sexy, sexy corpse,” he then kissed her passionately and while she was stunned from the kiss, he left and sealed the door to the chamber. She felt tears prick at her eyes and she glared at the door as her barrier snapped around it. Dorian finished his spell and they left this terrible future just as she heard Bull’s anguished cry and she knew he was dead. They appeared once again in the main hall of Redcliffe castle, moments after they had left if everyone’s reactions was anything to go by. Without warning, Seranni created an ethereal sword and held it to Alexius’ throat.

“The mages are mine, you are defeated and I hold your life in my hands,” she stared at him as her words sunk in. Slowly he nodded his defeat and Inquisition soldiers restrained the magister. The doors to the hall flew open and in walked two figures that Seranni did not recognize, but the rest of the room had.

“King Alistair, Queen Anora! What a surprise,” Fiona exclaimed. Seranni glanced at the woman in annoyance.

“Grand Enchanter, we’d like to discuss the mages abuse of our hospitality,” King Alistair looked at the Grand Enchanter with a hard look.

“When we offered the mages sanctuary, we did not give them the right to drive our people from their homes,” the queen’s face held the same hardness.

“I assure you, we never intended-”

“In light of your actions, good intentions are no longer enough,” the queen barked at the mage.

“You and your followers have worn out their welcome. Leave Ferelden, or you’ll be forced to leave,” Seranni saw a pain behind the king’s eyes as he spoke with the Grand Enchanter, a pain that had nothing to do with what was going on in this room.

“But, we have hundreds who need protection! Where will we go?”

Seranni spoke up for the first time since her conversation with Alexius, “the Inquisition offers safe harbor for the mages. However, if the mages wish for an alliance, then you will not be leading them.”

“What!? Then who would lead my people,” Fiona asked, shocked.

“I don’t care, once you reach Haven a new Grand Enchanter will lead the mages you are so worried about,” her anger remained and Bull was surprised at the show of emotions. Something had happened when she had gone through the rift, she hadn’t so much as glanced in the direction of Bull or Cassandra since her return.

The King and Queen nodded their approval and they left just as suddenly as they had arrived, Fiona looked to Seranni with shame written all over her body, “I will lead them to Haven, once there they will choose a new Grand Enchanter to lead them.”

At Seranni’s nod of approval Fiona left to make preparations and Seranni turned back to the group, she pointedly looked at Varric before speaking, “let’s get out of here.”

Bull and Cassandra followed silently as they waited for her to come to them with what was going on inside her head. She didn’t come to them when they left the castle, she didn’t come to them when they mounted their horses to begin their trek back to Haven. She didn’t say anything when Dorian began traveling with them and was silent as they rode their horses. Once they stopped for camp however, she asked Varric to take the first watch and indicated for Cassandra and Bull to enter her tent. She sat in the middle of the tent while Cassandra and Bull knelt on either side of her.

“You both died,” she began softly, “we found you in prison cells. Corrupted by red lyrium, I could hear the song emanating from you both.”

Horror dawned on Cassandra’s features and Bull kept his face tactfully blank. Seranni felt the pinprick of angry tears behind her eyes and willed the tears back, “You needed me and I wasn’t there.”

“Seranni,” Cassandra began.

“You needed me and I wasn’t there,” she said forcefully.

Bull reached forward and held her head in his large hands and forced her to face him, “not by your choice.”

The tone of his voice and the look on his face told her more than his words. He didn’t blame her for his death, out of the corner of her eye she saw the same look on Cassandra’s face. Seranni felt anger and confusion at their actions,  _ Why don’t they blame me? If I had turned the same way Mirak had, Seranna would have beat my ass into the ground. If I had abandoned people the way I had been forced to here, Seranna would have kicked my ass. _ Thoughts swirled in her mind like a raging storm until Bull nodded at Cassandra and sudden pain erupted as her magic tried to tear her apart and she relaxed into the sensation.

Bull reached behind him and grabbed two blankets, his own and Seranni’s. When Cassandra saw clarity enter her eyes she ended her ability and watched as Bull silently placed Seranni’s arms in a specified position across her torso so she hugged herself. He wrapped one blanket around her in silence and lay her down before shifting to her lower half. Cassandra looked at Seranni’s face to see her eyes beginning to droop in sleepiness, she had never seen this before. Seranni’s eyes had always snapped shut and stopped moving, she thought the woman had fallen asleep and felt saddened by the realization of what had been happening all this time. 

When he was finished with her legs he went back up to her head and undid her braid and carefully wrapped the band around his dagger. His dawnstone dagger that he had left in the table that night because it was the first thing he had requested to be made for him. She represented his wants and he had left his want with her, he smiled to himself at the irony that she had come waltzing back into his life as if nothing had changed. When she had disappeared through that rift with the ‘Vint, panic had seized his heart and it felt like his heart had frozen in place.

He swallowed the lump in his throat and stared down at the woman now lying unconscious before him. He felt Cassandra’s eyes on him and he forced himself to look away from her and towards the Seeker. She had settled herself silently into one corner of the tent, no intention on leaving the tent then, that was fine. He would be content to share the tent with her as well.

“How did you know?” she asked him in a quiet whisper.

“She called me Hissrad and you relaxed, so she told you about Seheron?”

“A bit, yes,” Cassandra nodded.

“I’ve never asked her directly, but I’ve done the math,” he looked hard at the Seeker as he spoke, “she was three when she was turned in as a Saarebas. She should be dead.”

Cassandra looked at him confused, “why?”

“In the Qun a few years back, the Tamassrans made a rule that any Saarebas found under the age of five was to be killed,” Bull swallowed again, “a pattern was noticed that Saarebas turned in before the age of five were uncontrollable, even if their minds had been broken.”

“Then how?”

“Her Tamassran lied,” he said heavily, “I met her when she was eight years old,” a pang of guilt shot through him at feeling the way he did, but she wasn’t that same child. He glanced at her, she wasn’t a child anymore. She was honestly the most beautiful person he had ever met and the memory of her killing that dragon popped in his head and his cock twitched in response. He quickly looked away and looked back at Cassandra.

“I watched her be put to bed for three years as her Arvaarad,” he paused, “ _ helped _ her to bed.” He glanced at his Katari Ataashi, “this is the basic position that she slept in, probably since she was three years old.”

“But-”

“Saarebas are vulnerable when they sleep because of their connection to the fade, if they wake up possessed by a Demon then they are already bound and are easier to deal with.” Cassandra nodded her understanding and swallowed the lump in her throat, she would have to remember this information.

Seranni awoke the next morning to the sight of Cassandra leaning against her pack in one corner of her tent, while Bull sat in the other. The moment her eyes landed on him, her brow furrowed, she had dreamed of the kiss that the other Bull had given her and she wondered if that was truly how the man in front of her felt. She pondered that as she waited for him to wake, but when she saw him awaken, he kept his eyes closed. She wondered what he was doing and waited patiently until Cassandra woke up. She saw Bull’s eyes closed and assumed him to be asleep. Seranni smiled to herself as ‘rule number eight’ rolled through her head.

“Do you need someone to get you out of that then?” Cassandra whispered quietly. Her small smile stayed on her face as she nodded and when Cassandra looked at her confused as to where to start she wiggled her legs and Cassandra smiled her thanks at Seranni.


	14. In Your Heart Shall Burn

They did it, the Breach was closed. Seranni smiled at the feeling of euphoria that came from everyone that surrounded her. However, all she wanted after feeling that much magic in the air and being channeled through her, all she wanted was Cassandra to Smite her for a while. Despite her wishes, Seranni found herself standing at the top of the hill of Haven, just outside the Chantry, and over looked the festivities. She watched as Bull drank with his Chargers and she saw how happy they made him. Her heart ached at the memory of that horrible future, it ached at all the years she had spent away from Hissrad, Bull, whatever. She heard the crunch of Cassandra’s boots behind her. 

“Solas confirms that the Heavens are scarred, but calm,” Cassandra followed Seranni’s line of sight to The Iron Bull. “Word of what you’ve accomplished as spread.”

“Is it really my accomplishments? People will see them as mine simply because circumstances placed me at the center,” Seranni sighed and finally pulled her gaze away from Bull.

“You’re right, this was a victory born of alliance, one of the few in recent history. With the Breach closed, that alliance will need new focus,” Cassandra reached out a comforting hand to Seranni’s forearm. 

Suddenly a bell began tolling in the distance, one of their warning bells. Seranni and Cassandra split apart and ran for the gates to meet with Cullen. Bull met up with them on the way and Cullen began filling them in on the situation.

“One watchtower reporting. It’s a massive force approaching, the bulk of which is on the other side of the mountain still.”

Josephine met up with them and asked, “Under what banner?”

“None,” came Cullen’s reply.

Suddenly there were two bangs at the gate, “I can’t come in unless you open.” Memories stirred at the sound of the softly spoken voice. A voice that had saved her, so long ago.

No one moved, so Seranni spurred into action and she opened the gate to a large hulking brute walking towards the gates of Haven until a blonde haired boy appeared behind him. He flipped over the brute, slashing the brute’s throat as he passed and quickly stabbing a dagger into the brute’s stomach causing him to fall backwards. The boy was wearing a large brimmed hat and what appeared to be rags, when he looked up more memories stirred in her mind. She smelled salt on a sea air and suddenly she remembered him.

“I’m Cole, I came to warn you. People are coming to hurt you. You probably already know,” Cole looked into her eyes and he gasped, “you! Saarebas on the ship. I was told you needed me and now I need you. I want to help.”

The moment the word Saarebas left his mouth, Cassandra and Bull glared at the newcomer and the other gathered had varying reactions. Solas, Varric, and Josephine looked sad. Vivienne looked sorry. Dorian looked horrified while Blackwall and Sera looked unsure of how to act now.

“The templars have come to kill you,” Cole told her softly.

“Templars? This is the Order’s response to us talking with the mages? Attacking blindly,” Cullen approached and Cole backed away quickly. Seranni changed her body position to be between Cole and Cullen with her back to the newcomer. Bull and Cassandra saw this, but continued their glares at the boy.

“The red templars went to the Elder One. You know him? He knows you. He is angry you took his mages, there.” Cole pointed to a cliff that overlooked the Haven.

“I know that man,” Cullen breathed, “but this Elder One?” A large man shimmered into view with what looked to be red Lyrium protruding from his head. Seranni could hear the song even at this distance, it was as if he were living lyrium.

“You hear the songs too, they can help. They do help, they like helping,” Cole spoke to Seranni who still had not uttered a word. She took a deep breath and began barking orders of her own.

“Josephine, work at getting the civilians to the chantry. Cullen send the soldiers that have been drinking tonight with the civilians to the Chantry. If nothing else they will be protected,” Seranni turned and saw that the rest of her companions had joined them at the gates. Bull looked to her encouragingly and she reminded herself that while  _ she _ may be a one woman army, there were too many civilians around for her to seriously cut loose. Battle plans from another war flashed through her mind. She could almost see the red of the Imperials surrounding her,  _ no, wait, that’s fire and lyrium enhanced templars. _ She shook her head and turned back to tactics. Haven wasn’t defensible, but they may be able to use the mountain to their advantage.

“Cullen, aim the trebuchets to cause miniature rockslides to take out as many of them as we can. Blackwall, Sera, Varric, and Dorian, you guys defend the trebuchets on the south side, keep them firing. Cassandra, Bull, Solas, and I will take the north trebuchets. Vivienne, I want you to direct the mages where you think they will do best, they have not elected a new Grand Enchanter and I don’t trust Fiona to lead them in battle. Let’s go,” there was a moment of surprise before everyone immediately turned to do as she had told them. As she walked past the spirit she whispered, “you go find us a way to survive this.” With that he disappeared and she went to work.

They protected both of their trebuchets effectively until they heard an unearthly screech pierce the night, causing Seranni to immediately strengthen her barriers over Cassandra and Bull. It was the same screech she had heard in that future. A ball of crackling red lyrium blew into the trebuchet that they were beside and they all scrambled to retreat. She saw the other group she had sent south was retreating as well and Seranni freed civilians that hadn’t made it to the chantry yet. As they entered the Chantry Seranni saw Chancellor Roderick collapse from a wound he had sustained at some point in the battle. He fell onto Cole and Seranni rushed over to them.

She used her magic and saw that he had lost too much blood, even her magic could not save him and she used her magic to instead ease his pain. Cullen saw her and rushed over to her.

“Herald! Our position is not good, that dragon stole back any time you might have earned us,” Seranni kept her focus on her magic and leached out tendrils to ease the suffering of those that were dying all around her.

“I’ve seen an archdemon, I was in the Fade, but it looked like that,” Cole offered helpfully.

“I don’t care what it looks like,” Cullen growled, “It has cut a path for that army, they’ll destroy Haven.”

“The Elder One doesn’t care about Haven. He only wants her,” Cole insisted.

Seranni looked up to see Solas staring at her as if she were a puzzle he was trying to figure out and suddenly another image appeared over his. It looked like Solas, but he had hair. Black hair that was long and wrapped in thick cords with a wolf mask covering his forehead. She looked to Bull as he growled, “Well he’s going to go on wanting her, ‘cause he’s not gonna get her.”

“Chancellor Roderick wants to help before he dies,” Cole piped up.

“There is a path, you wouldn’t know it unless you have taken the Summer Pilgrimage, as I have. The people can escape, she must have shown me. Andraste must have shown me so I could, tell you,” he wheezed.

Seranni nodded and rose from the floor, cutting off her flow of magic to those around her, “sorry Bull, but that’s exactly what we’re going to do. Cole and the Chancellor will lead these people out of here and I’ll run out and aim a trebuchet towards the mountain.”

“But to cause an avalanche large enough to defeat them to not chase after us, you’d have to bury Haven,” Cullen strategized aloud.

Seranni nodded, “I know.” She began walking towards the doors of the Chantry. Bull and Cassandra moved to stand in her way, but they found that they couldn’t move their legs. They both looked at her accusingly, Cassandra began screaming at her. Bull watched her and only said, “Katari Ataashi.”

She used her magic to open the large doors to the chantry and Solas felt the song of a flute on the air once again. He watched her silently as she slammed the doors of the chantry shut and he felt her barrier snap around the door. The sound of the flute grew louder as time progressed and people made their way out of the chantry through the tunnels that were apparently underneath the old church.

Leaving them the way she had was the hardest thing she had done, she had paralyzed their legs so they wouldn’t stop her from doing what she knew she needed to do. She needed to cut loose, just a little. She snapped her barrier over the door and took a deep breath before exhaling and opening her eyes. They had a slight glow about them. She felt centered, this was her purpose. She summoned her inferno and sent her wall of fire throughout all of Haven. As soon as her spell ended she heard the shriek of that damned not-dragon. She smirked before she bent the Fade around her and appeared adjacent to the trebuchet, surrounded by red templars and Behemoths. Her flame wall enveloped them as well and the not-dragon appeared before her as soon as her spell ended.

He taunted her as all villians will do before he realized that she wasn’t listening, merely smirking at him. He had revealed his name to be Corypheus and he tried to use an elven orb to take the anchor from her hand.  _ Good thing I blended my magic to it _ . The pain that erupted from his attempt caused her focus to snap back and she felt rejuvenated and kept him distracted for longer than she would have thought possible.

“You will kneel before me,” he shouted at her angrily.

“No matter how the wind howls, the mountain cannot bow to it,” it took him a moment to understand what she was saying. He growled in anger and threw her against the trebuchet and she summoned an ethereal sword until she saw the flare signal that Cullen was to send out when they were safe. She dissipated her sword and kicked the trebuchet to fire at the mountain. She ran for the wooden patch in the ground and used her magic to blast it open and jumped through the hole. She fell to the ground and immediately placed a barrier to keep snow from falling on her and moved out of the way.

She let her barrier down and leaned against the pile of snow that fell through the opening, she was exhausted. It had been hard to not let her  _ full  _ power out. Therefore she had been fighting a battle on both sides. The dragon souls within her screaming for her to completely cut loose. There were people that she had to protect, she couldn’t level the mountain that her people were escaping on, that would have been counterproductive. She walked and thought of Bull and Cassandra.  _ Would they think I died? Hope not, otherwise that could be awkward. _ She rounded a corner and saw two despair demons milling about in front of her. She felt the tendrils of the fade and she heard a feeling whisper for her to use the mark.

She looked down at her left hand and extended it towards the demons, the familiar question came from the mark, ‘open or close?’

This time she thought, ‘open’ and suddenly a rift appeared and sucked the demons into the rift and as soon as she thought, ‘close’ the rift closed and she was left in the cave in sudden silence.  _ Huh.  _ She blinked to herself for a moment before she continued walking and she saw a shade in the tunnel as well. Her arm tingled with exhaustion, she knew she woudln’t be able to open a rift and send the poor bastard back to the Fade, so she did the next best thing. 

“Yol-Toor-Shul,” She shouted at the shade. It mercifully died quickly and from it's corpse an ethereal mini-wyrm sprang forth and followed her. It floated around her as she walked through the cave and provided some much needed warmth. The actions of the day began catching up with her and she could feel the exhaustion catching up to her. She knew if she didn’t find a warm place to sleep, then she may not ever wake back up.

Finally she found the mouth of the cave and nearly groaned at the snow that was blowing chaotically outside.  _ Of fucking course there’s a fucking blizzard going on.  _ She had the idea to wait the storm out, but she had no provisions and had no way of knowing how long the storm would last. However, if she went after them in the storm. If she caught up to them, then she could rest safely with Cassandra and Bull.  _ Besides, I have my little fire Wyrm, oh wait, there it goes. All alone now.  _

Steeling herself, she made her way out into the storm and clutched her cloak to herself. She couldn’t stop her shivering and she felt her eyes began to droop. She tried to go further, but she was exhausted. Bull and Cassandra were safe, that was enough for her and she collapsed into the snow. Before her eyes closed she swore she saw a dragon approach her through the blizzard.


	15. The Dawn Will Come

Bull mumbled, “shit,” under his breath as he watched Seranni fall down some hole before the avalanche hit. He hoped she was alive, she had to be alive. He wanted to remain staring at the remains of Haven until she popped back up out of the snow, but Cassandra and he both knew they were needed to keep these people safe. After what seemed like hours, one of the scouts spotted a dragon flying behind them. Bull turned and headed in that direction with Cassandra, they were the most experienced at facing dragons.

However, once they arrived at the area the dragon had been seen, there was nothing there. Nothing except the frozen near-corpse of Seranni. It looked as if she had been laid on top of the snow by the wind itself. Bull saw Solas staring at the sky as if it would answer all his questions on this matter. Bull quickly ran to Seranni and curled her into his arms. She was freezing, Cass stared at him as if she wanted to be the one who carried her back to camp.

“Qunari run hotter than most humans,” he said to her quietly as he ran back to their camp. He refused to let her go when they had reached camp and when the healers were done looking her over saying she was just exhausted. It was lucky that she had been found when she was, apparently she had been close to frostbite. Once the healers left the tent, Cassandra arrived with a pile of blankets, they used two thin ones to bind her comfortably. Then they wrapped her up with Bull to warm her as he held her.

He watched as Cass left to argue with Cullen, Josephine, and Lelianna about where they would head next. Bull didn’t care, she was in his arms. She was safe again, he had almost lost her twice now because of this Corypheus and the mark on her hand. He held her close as she rested and he heard her mumble in her sleep.

“Ar lath ma da'len, to ama ma dea deal de den Mythal's ju,” her face tightened, “*I'm sorry. Tama.* Ar lath ma da'len, to ama ma dea deal de den Mythal's ju. I kept my promise, I remembered your words, I survived, Tama. I survived.”

He held her silently as tears fell down her face and he pondered her words, he wondered what the words meant, it sounded like elvish to him and he had caught a few words like ‘duty’ and ‘my child’ but that didn’t tell him much. He resolved to expand his elvhen vocabulary, but he wanted to know what it meant. He only knew of one person who could for sure translate the words. Bull warred with himself all night long as he lay there.

The following morning Seranni still had not woken up, but Solas didn’t seem concerned when he had inquired as to her health. They had all seen the magic she had wielded and many people were saying she wielded Andraste’s Flame. He had his doubts about that one, but could see where people would make the connection. Many still believed her mark to be the mark of Andraste, and despite everything that had happened, she was their beacon of hope. She made decisions that affected nations now. The people would look to her, if they didn’t make her Inquisitor after this, they were insane. She bore the weight of the world now, and suddenly he knew exactly what she needed, he grinned at how much fun he could have with that. His grin faltered when he thought of how to present this to her so she knew she could refuse and he would still lo- care, care for her. She awoke on the third morning of their journey through the mountains. He undid her bindings and helped her to eat some broth and it reminded him of Seheron, taking care of her as her replacement Arvaarad. He moved those thoughts away, she had been away from him for about two and a half years.

He frowned at that, he may have to mention that if she wanted to be with other people she could. Would he be okay with that? He decided that so long as she was happy he would be content with whatever she wanted. If she wanted to have sex with him, Cullen, or Josephine, he knew he wouldn’t care, so long as she was happy. At least, he hoped so.

Seranni awoke from her dreams in familiar warmth and after he undid her bindings, Bull fed her broth carefully. It reminded her of when they were in Seheron, suddenly her mind changed the shape of the spoon in her mouth and she had the sudden thought of sucking on Bull’s member. The suddenness of the thought and her closeness to him caused her to freeze and reflexively put up her mask.

“Like I said before, you can talk about your thoughts, you don’t have to freeze up,” of course Bull would notice her actions.

“Tomatoes,” she said quickly, “I was thinking about tomatoes.”

“Tomatoes?” he asked.

“Tomatoes,” she said firmly.

“What about tomatoes?”

“The stalk,” she quipped.

“What color is the stalk,” he narrowed his eyes at her.

“Grey-een,” she corrected mid-word

“Greyeen, hmm don’t think I’ve ever heard of that color before, you should describe it to me,” he picked up one of the cherries that someone had put on her plate. They were starving on the side of a cliff and here they were giving her luxuries like cherries. Out of the corner of her eye she saw Bull pluck the stem from the cherry and popped it inside his mouth. She had never seen him eat a cherry stem before and thought it was weird and was silent as all thought went out the proverbial window when he pulled out the stem and it was tied in a perfect knot, which he placed back on the plate next to the other cherries.

She stared at the knotted cherry stem and her eyes slowly raised to meet with Bull’s eye, her mouth was suddenly dry at the look he was giving her. She saw raw desire in his eyes and she knew it was directed at her this time. Her heart pounded in her chest she knew she wasn’t dreaming because of all the aches and pains that still riddled her body. She picked up the plate and moved it off to the side, when she turned back to face him she grabbed him by the neck and pulled herself to sit in his lap as she pulled his face towards her and crashed their lips together.

As Bull held her he placed one of his hands on her back, then lifted his hand so only his blunted claws touched her skin and raked his hand down her back. As expected she moaned into his mouth, thus opening her mouth for him to explore. It was better than in his dreams, he knew this was real. The cold at his back reminding him where he was. Some part of him sang in triumph that she was acting on her attraction to him. She wasn’t running away from him, she was here in his arms kissing him.

Suddenly there was a clearing of a throat and they pulled apart to see Cassandra standing in the entrance of the tent. Bull cleared his throat and gently detangled himself from her and bowed out. He knew Cassandra wanted some time with her and he wanted to talk to Solas. He found the elf far away from the rest of the camp, his lone tent staying perfectly erect despite the winds. The man was currently standing at the top of his hill that overlooked Seranni’s tent.

“She is awake,” he wasn’t asking, but Bull nodded confirmation anyway. “Is there something else I can help with? Has something happened to the mark?”

“Just wanted a translation for some elvhen I heard, figured you were the best expert at the language,” Bull shook his head.

“Very well, what were the words?”

“Ar lath ma da'len, to ama ma dea deal de den Mythal's ju.”

Solas’ brow furrowed and he was silent for a moment, “the closest translation would be ‘I love you my child, to protect you was Mythal’s will.” He spoke quietly and quietly excused himself from Bull’s company. Bull pondered over the words and he wondered what the hell this Mythal wanted with his Katari Ataashi.

Later that evening Cassandra cornered Bull and when he asked who was with Seranni she waved him off saying that the spirit being, Cole, was with her. Bull could tell that she was not happy with leaving Seranni with Cole. Bull shrugged then and asked her what she wanted.

“You will not touch her in such a manner again,” she growled at him.

He was wondering when this would come up, he had seen the glances that Cass had been giving him since the dragons. Word must have gotten to her about that kiss and catching them in such an embrace really wouldn’t help matters.

“She’s capable of deciding things for herself, in fact  _ she _ kissed  _ me _ . You just came in in the middle, notice how I had to be the one to pull away from her,” he told her. In the distance he heard someone chuckling and he turned to see Blackwall covering his mouth in an attempt to hide a smile. He knew something.

His words seemed to upset Cass even more, “She needs to be protected.”

“Agreed, but not coddled. She wouldn’t know how to deal with it, so we treat her like everyone else. We’re the ones lucky enough to be allowed in, we see more of her than anyone else,” he watched as Cassandra’s face smoothed from angry to thoughtful, “Granted I don’t know what happened to her after Seheron, but she definitely knew what she was doing.”

“Fine, but she sets the pace,” she glared at him.

“Way ahead of you, Cass,” he winked at her. Once she realized that it was a wink she rolled her eyes and made a disgusted noise. He grinned at her reaction and went to sit with his chargers for a moment. After a bit he heard Cullen, Lelianna, Josephine, and Cassandra start up their argument again. Moments later Seranni emerged from her tent and the entire camp sang some kind of hymn at her and he caught Skinner of all people mouthing the words along with the Inquisition.

He saw her walk off with Solas and when they returned she had a disgruntled look on her face, 

“I’m an oddball. I’m human enough, but I don’t really have a  _ people _ . I grew up with the Qun so would that make me Qunari and make  _ them _ my people?” Cole’s voice sounded close to Bull’s ear. He had only just barely resisted the urge to swing his axe at the kid and growled a warning before asking if that was what Seranni had been thinking. Cole nodded, “she thinks about you, a lot. You soothe her aches, not her good aches. You soothe her bad aches. You help her.”

“Thanks kid,” he muttered to the kid.


	16. Fortune Favors the Bold

They had settled into Skyhold and she was named Inquisitor, she met with Varric’s friend the Champion of Kirkwall. She had been surprised to meet the female mage and was even more surprised by how cocky the woman was. It wasn’t common to see such confidence in a mage here in Thedas, at least that had been Seranni’s experience thus far. Even among the mages from Redcliffe, none were overly cocky or reminded her of the mages from Skyrim. She invited the Champion to drinks with her and Bull later that night. Hawke’s humor was refreshing and reminded her of Bull. It was a mixture of being cocksure and a dry wit whose deadpan comments left half the room dying of laughter. It was a welcome distraction. She watched as Bull and Hawke tried to drink each other under the table until Hawke’s hand rested on Bull’s thigh.

 

Seranni raised an eyebrow,  _ bold move, Champion _ . She kept an ear out for that corner of the tavern and pulled her gaze from Bull and Hawke to Krem who was going on and on about Maryden, the bard. Seranni tried to turn the conversation back to Templars and her insistence that Krem should train with Cassandra or Cullen. 

 

“Rule 19, Krem. Never stop growing. You think Bull would begrudge you for wanting to learn a new style of fighting. Especially if that style would work for you,” she eyed the man next to her and took a sip of her drink.

 

“I’ve told you once, I’ve told you a thousand times. Your Worship,” Krem’s use of her fan-made title had her wincing and him smirking at her. 

 

From behind her, Seranni heard, “nah, thanks for the offer Hawke, but I kind of have a thing for redheads.”

 

Her mouth suddenly went dry as her heartbeat picked up in pace. She slowly turned her attention to that corner of the tavern to see that Bull was looking straight at her. She decided then and there exactly what she was doing tonight, or rather, who. She went a few more rounds with Krem before she gracefully excused herself from the table and went up every flight of stairs to the top of the Tavern. She looked over the railing of the tavern and caught Bull’s eye before she deliberately went to his door and walked straight inside. She was glad to see that the workers had done as she had asked and had completed repairs in this tower. As soon as she realized that Bull had claimed this corner of the fortress for himself, she made sure he was comfortable.

 

She lit a fire in his fireplace and stripped out of her armor, it was so tight she didn’t bother with smalls since everything was held together by her armor. She stood bare in the room for a moment before sitting down on the bed. She thought to herself as she undid her hair and realized that Bull was taking quite a while to follow her. He was giving her time to back out if she wanted. She smiled to herself and shook her hair free. She needed this, _By the Nine,_ she needed this. She relaxed as she heard his footsteps creak on the wooden floors outside his door.

 

The door opened and Bull entered the room, he grinned at her as he closed his door and locked it behind him. He then went and locked the other two doors to his quarters and Bull stood before her and looked at her hungrily. He was unprepared for the amount of her skin covered by tattoos. Up her left arm, stemming from the Anchor mark were ribbons of green tribal markings wrapping around her arm and they stopped at her shoulder, but they looked like they wanted to continue. A flash of worry stole through Bull,  _ what happens when the mark reaches her heart? _ His eyes wandered through the rest of her tattoos, her upper torso was covered with them. In the center of her chest was some sea creature whose flowing limbs, there were far too many for Bull’s taste, framed her breasts beautifully. Despite the number of tattoos that wrapped around her torso and back, the only ones to stand out were the sea creature, a long stemmed rose on her upper right arm, and on her left hip was what appeared to be a white rabbit. The rabbit was an odd looking creature, it looked like a normal enough rabbit, but it had deer antlers coming from the top of it’s head. Bull shook his thoughts from his mind and refocused on the task before him. 

 

“You have a watchword with Cassandra?”

 

“Dathrasi.”

 

He grimaced, “Yeah, you would pick that.”

 

“Would you like a different watchword for you?”

 

“No, Dathrasi’s fine.”

 

“Not for me, I really don’t want to be reminded of him when I’m with you.”

 

He raised an eyebrow at her, “what did you have in mind?”

 

“Talos.”

 

He quirked an eyebrow at the unfamiliar word before he stripped out of his clothing and knelt before her and looked her in the eye, “have you ever done anything like this before?”

 

She smiled at him, just a little cocky, “maybe.” He grinned at the challenge he saw in her eyes. She had grown up quite a bit from the little spitfire Saarebas that he had known. 

 

Bull let his eye wander the curves of her body, drinking her in. She reached out and wrapped her arms around his neck and pulled herself to sit in his lap on the floor. She buried her face into the crook of his neck and he heard her breathe in deeply. He felt her hair drape over his shoulder and he wrapped his arms around her body. He was startled to feel as many scars as he did, most were so thin they were invisible. Her back was littered with scars crisscrossing every which way. As if she had been in an uncountable number of sword fights, which was surprising to him. 

 

“Side Arm,” his voice dropped a few octaves as he felt her teeth on his neck.

 

“Take me, I’m not some innocent virgin, you can let go,” she purred against his neck. He placed his hands on her shoulders and pulled her back so he could look into her eyes. His brow furrowed in question, “I have lived far longer than it seems I have, Bull. It may have only been two and a half years for you, but for me. It, has, been, so, very, long,” she had broken that last sentence with kisses across his chest. “Please, Bull,” her lips ghosted across his ear, “fuck me.” 

 

***

Bull growled as he pulled her back once more, but this time he lifted her and tossed her back onto the bed. He saw the fire in her eyes and smiled carnally at her. _Fuck, what happened to her?_ _How did she get so fucking perfect?_ He quickly covered her body with his and kissed her roughly as his hand squeezed around her breast. His grip bordered on painful before he started twisting his hand. Her scream was muffled by his kiss, but he felt her lips twitch against his in a smile. He pulled back from her and stared down at her as his other hand went to her other breast. This hand pinched at her peaked nipple. He started with lightly twisting pinches couples with his hard twisting of her other breast and she writhes beneath him. Her hips undulating against his, the core of her heat rubbing up and down the underside of his cock.

 

He removed his hands from her breasts and she whimpered at the loss of his hands on her body. He smiled before he rested his fingertips against her skin, just above her breasts. He waited till she was looking up at him again before he roughly raked his blunted claws down her front, his claws catching and dragging her nipples in their wake. 

 

Her guttural moan seemed to speak directly to his cock, which pulsed in response to her obvious pleasure. He smiled wickedly at her before he lowered his head to taste her skin. His mouth latched around her peaked nipple as his other hand came up and resumed squeezing her entire breast in his hand.  He had a passing thought as to the perfect size and shape of her breast in relation to his hand as his one of his canines brushed over the nipple in his mouth. She gasped and he latched his teeth around the peak. 

 

He rolled the nipple in his teeth as he moved his jaw from side to side. He tasted the copper of blood and a pang of worry started in his mind before her hips sprang up to meet his. He felt her wetness against his balls and ran his tongue roughly up her nipple, lapping up any blood from his teeth. She was already relaxing beneath him as he continued his licks, kisses, and bites up to her neck where she angled her head to allow him better access. He pulled her skin taut between his teeth and tasted her blood once more as his fangs scraped at her skin. 

 

There was something in the taste of her blood that sang with his body as his hips jerked forward of their own accord. He wanted nothing more than to bury himself to the hilt inside her, but held back, wanting their first coupling to be more than just a quick fuck. It was hard, though, it felt as if he were fighting against his Ravager rage as he tasted of her blood. Suddenly her eyes opened wide and their glow held him captive. 

 

“Let go, for once, let me catch you,” it was as if a lever had been switched. The floodgates opened and he let forth a loud roar before he attached his lips to hers and drew his hips back. Her hips rose to meet his and he slammed into her in one fluid motion. He felt her hands clawing at his back as she wrapped her legs around his hips. His fingers moved to her hips and gripped them so tight he knew he would be leaving bruises. His hips rocked against hers and he raised a hand to brace against the headboard. His head raised and he roared once more as he felt the Ravager Rage crawling it’s way back to the surface. 

 

This time he didn’t fight it and his memory started blanking out, much like in battle, all he knew was that his cock was inside his Saarebas and he would kill anyone who interrupted them just then. Her screams drove him deeper and deeper into both her and his Rage. She clutched close to him as her body shook, in the obvious throws of an orgasm, but he couldn’t stop. His hips kept their pace as she became boneless for a bit. Her body seemed to begin twitching of it's own accord, all the while his hips drove him into her over and over again. Her head rolled in the back of her head and her hands began clawing at his back once more. This time as she began writhing as her next orgam was building, he felt his own release approaching. An image of their fights with dragons flashed through his mind and his roar mixed with her screams as their release mingled together and Bull collapsed to her side. 

***

 

He lay there panting to her side as focus slowly came back to them. He finally caught his breath and found that she had plastered herself against his side and was already asleep. He watched her for a moment before his hand came up and traced the outline of a few of her bruises. Her marks. Marks that he had put on her. Marking her as his. He knew then that he would never be able to share her. No one was going to take her away from him. Never again would the Qun stand between them. He decided then and there that he would sacrifice everything and make the world burn, for her. 

 

His heart hammered in his chest as he remembered every love story he grew up with. Every single one of them had ended in tragedy. Every story ending with the death of the fools who fell in love. He realized then that he truly was dead. Without her he had no reason for being, he had been wandering, lost without her. Even with the Chargers it had felt like something was missing without her. 

 

“I love you,” the whisper sounded like an omen of death to his ears in the darkness of his tower. He curled around her and buried his nose in her hair. He breathed deeply of her scent and whispered once more, “Katari Ataashi.” In that moment he knew what he had really said to her after that dragon had been killed. Katari Ataashi. Dragon Death. I love you. 


	17. Demands of the Qun

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “They needed each other, Hissrad died,” Cole explained.

Events passed as they would and time moved forward, Bull had slowly been ‘forgetting’ things in Seranni’s chambers for weeks and once they broke the bed in Bull’s room, he gave in and moved the rest of his things into her chambers at the top of the fortress. He had caught her standing at the railing overlooking the mountains and the sky enviously more than once and had joined her on the balcony to watch the sunrise quite a few times. He smiled as he remembered Seranni trying to explain how the bed had been broken to Josephine.

 

_ “Well you see, we were trying out a hold that we hadn’t really practiced before, so we wanted a soft surface-” _

 

_ “I was tickling her ribs, she was fighting me.” _

 

_ “Bull!” She slapped at his stomach with the back of her hand.  _

 

Bull grinned as he silently wrapped his arms around Seranni’s form as she overlooked the mountains once more. She relaxed into his hold and rested her head back against his chest. Once again she had woken before him and was staring reverently at the sunrise. He wondered once more at her past. The past he hadn’t been there for. He wondered at what had happened for her to want to watch the sunrise every morning. After a few more moment and the courtyard below started filling with people once more, she pat his arm that had wrapped around her middle and he let her go. He leaned back against the rail as he watched her get ready for the day. Once she was clothed he crossed the room and pulled her into his embrace. 

 

He kissed her hard and ran his fingers through her long hair. He wrapped his arms around her and lifted her as she automatically wrapped her legs around his waist. He pressed her against the nearby wall and as his growls became more urgent, her moans joined his. He pulled back after a bit and lightly nipped at the tip of her nose. 

 

She glared playfully, “do we  _ have _ to leave the rooms today?”

 

“Yes, you need to garner favor with nobles to gain entry to the Ball, we need to investigate the west for that demon army-”

 

“Okay, okay, I get it, but tonight,” her hips pressed against his in a silent begging.

 

“Tonight” he purred happily. They parted from each other and once they entered the main hall, they split apart. Seranni headed for the forge across the way to work on creating something or other.  Bull made his way down through the castle fortress itself and made his way out of the gates of Skyhold and went to the rock where the dead drop would be. He pulled out the phial that held the paper with his orders on it. He read the words on the page and was suddenly glad he hadn’t had breakfast yet.

 

He quickly made his way back to Skyhold and straight up to Lelianna’s roost, “report from my superiors, Red.”

 

Annoyance crossed her features, he was still curious as to what she was going to do to get him to stop calling her that, but that was not his issue at the moment. He grabbed a parchment and quill and quickly wrote down the translated text, “if you want to have The Inquisitor read it over to ensure correct translation I won’t be offended.”

 

“She knows your ben-hassrath code?” she asked curiously.

 

He smiled in response and went down to the main hallway where he saw Seranni about to enter the War Room with her advisors. He waved her down and told her that he wanted to talk with her after her meeting, she nodded her agreement. He was suddenly struck by his situation.  _ After this, I’ll be Tal-Vashoth _ . He scowled and made his way down to the tavern where he grabbed Krem and began working on the shield bash with him. He was surprised when Seranni appeared next to them after he had flown Krem back, again.

 

“Ah, come on, Krem. I’ve been working my ass off to get you to see that move!”

 

“You’ve still got plenty of ass left, chief. Uh, hey Seranni,” Krem greeted her nervously. Even after all this time he was still a bit nervous around her, Bull assured her it was because she had been so good at reading the guy.

 

“Glad you came by, I got word from the Ben-Hassrath,” he saw her swallow and begin to go rigid. She knew the danger they both faced. “They got word of a shipment of red lyrium that we can hit on the Storm Coast. Small squad, you, me, Chargers, one or two more people.”

She glanced at Bull, he knew she would take Cole and Cassandra with them. They went with her every time she left the keep now. She trusted them, Vivienne was busy being Grand Enchanter of the mages, Blackwall was busy with Josephine, Dorian was busy researching Corypheus, Sera was too scared of Seranni to really keep their friendship and she was saddened by this. Sera remained with the Inquisition and frequently left with Blackwall, Solas, and Varric on missions to help stabilize the country and bring order while helping the refugees.

 

“They mentioned an alliance with the Inquisition,” Bull commented and Seranni turned her gaze to the ground as she thought. She nodded her understanding and looked to Krem as he got a wistful look in his eye as he began to speak.

 

“Heard they were bringing in one of their Dreadnaughts, always wanted to see one of those things in action,” Bull bashed his shield and Krem flew back again.

 

“Did you see that? Ugh, go get some water,” Krem silently made his way to the water barrel and Seranni moved closer to Bull. She rested her hand on his forearm and lightly squeezed. She understood that he had gotten used to his role as undercover Tal-Vashoth and was used to them being far away. Now the Qun was suddenly in their faces and here they were, going against everything the Qun stood for by being together. She looked into his eyes and he saw worry for him in her eyes. He tried to smile reassuringly at her, but it only made the worry deepen. 

 

They made their way to the Storm Coast and Bull and Seranni remained as on edge as they had when they had left their quarters. It all seemed to be happening so fast and when they reached the meeting place for their Qunari contact, Seranni’s nerves screamed at her when Gatt appeared.

 

“Gatt! Last I heard you were still in Seheron,” Bull sounded jovial, but Seranni could hear him holding back. He didn’t trust this situation any more than she did, she didn’t like that it was Gatt who was their contact. She knew he would recognize her as soon as his attention turned to her.

 

Sure enough, “Saarebas!? What the hell are you doing here?” She silently lifted her left hand to show him her glowing mark and he glared at her and then at Bull, “your reports never mentioned that it was her leading the Inquisition!”

 

“His reports were sent through my spymaster and I told her the dangers of such information getting back to the Qun right then,” Seranni responded to him finally, “and my name is Seranni, use it.”

 

“Fine, Inquisitor,” Gatt said defiantly to her, he turned to Bull to speak about the plan, “Our dreadnaught is safely out of view, and out of range of any Venatori mages on shore. The plan is to eliminate the Venatori, then signal the dreadnaught so it can come in and take out the smuggler ship.”

 

Seranni knew that Bull never liked doing dreadnaught runs, too many ways for things to go wrong.

 

“My agents suggested two possible locations the Venatori may be camped to guard the shore. There,” Gatt pointed at a spot on the map before him, “and there. We’ll need to split up and hit both at once. Will you two stop facing books to each other?!”

 

Cassandra looked at him confused until she saw Seranni make an exaggeratedly absurd face, she pursed her lips to keep from smiling and ended up with an annoyed look. Gatt saw her annoyed look and started going into detail about when her lips were sewn shut. The entire time, Seranni and Bull both made exaggeratedly absurd faces at each other which only made Gatt growl in frustration and walked off to hit a tree. Once he had done so, Bull went off to let the Chargers know the plan and Cassandra saw the longing in Seranni’s eyes as he momentarily left her side.

 

They made their way easily to the camp they were to hit, Seranni had seen Krem send off their signal and their own followed not too long after. They watched as the dreadnaught came around the cliff and take down the smuggler ship easily. Bull laughed at the show, but Seranni felt a tightness in her shoulders. Had she fur it would be standing on end, just as her nerves were. Her fears were realized when she heard Bull say, “shit” under his breath. She looked up and saw a large squadron of Venatori agents heading towards the Chargers.

 

Bull looked to her, ‘What do I do?’

 

Her breath hitched in her chest, he was scared, but she couldn’t make this decision for him, she shook her head, “this is your choice. I can’t make it for you, Hissrad.”

 

Her use of his name was a warning, not only would he lose the Chargers if he didn’t call the retreat, he would lose her. He looked at Gatt and his hand hovered over the horn to signal the retreat.

 

“Your men need to hold that position, Bull,” Gatt pleaded with him.

 

“I do that, they’re dead,” time seemed to move slowly as he unhooked the horn from his belt.

 

Gatt looked at him desperately, “You’d be declaring yourself Tal-Vashoth. With all that you’ve given the Inquisition, half the Ben-Hassrath think you’ve gone Tal-Vashoth already. I vouched for you, said you would never turn Tal-Vashoth. I won’t even tell them it’s Saarebas that leads the Inquisition.”

 

“They’re my men and her name is Seranni,” he growled before he blew into the horn. Seranni watched as the Chargers retreated to a safe distance and when she turned back to face Gatt, his face was contorted with rage.

 

“So it is,” was all he said. Seranni was rendered silent as an image settled over Gatt’s face. All it was was a diamond shaped rune rimmed in purple fire in the middle of his forehead. The rune screamed ‘Desire’ at her and she stared at him in shock. Anguish crossed his features as he began pacing in front of them.

Seranni rolled her eyes once she saw the Chargers leave the area,  _ good.  _ Serani began backing up and nodded for Bull to move to the side. He did as Gatt began yelling at him, “All these years, you throw away all that you are? For what? For her?” he glared back at her scathingly.

 

“Wuld-Nah-Kest,” came from Seranni before she suddenly shot forward and she seemed to hover midair before she shouted the same thing again and was in the air halfway between their cliff and the cliff the Venatori had taken over from the Chargers. They were all stunned to silence as she shouted again. 

 

“Mul-Qah-Diiv,” her body glowed and it looked as if an ethereal dragon was superimposed over her. “She shouted that, “Wuld-Nah-Kest.” again and this time she hovered over the cliff, but was too high up. “Dur-Neh-Viir.”

 

Bull felt his heart stop as a dragon appeared in a swirl of purple and she landed on a bony wing that didn’t look like it should be able to fly. Bull looked at the rest of the dragon and indeed he saw patches of bone and sinew showing through too thin skin. It was as if the dragon were undead. His mouth went dry as Seranni’s momentum had her sliding from one wingtip to the other and as she landed on the grass a green glow appeared around her, a different shade to the Fade Anchor. She glowed so brightly as her hands twisted around her and suddenly she was wielding dual ethereal swords. She immediately began slicing through the ‘Vints around her as if they were nothing, their spells rolling harmlessly off her skin. 

 

The dragon she had apparently summoned, took flight and began shouting at the corpses of the ‘Vints she had killed and he watched in shock as the dead ‘Vints began getting up and fighting alongside Seranni. Bull could only blink, he couldn’t tear himself away from what Seranni was doing. If he had been able to look away he would have seen Gatt staring in open mouthed wonder and fear. Cassandra’s face was blank except for the extra wideness of her eyes as Seranni decimated the forces around her. Cole was the only one that didn’t appear to be in shock as he began singing, “Dovahkiin, Dovahkiin, Naal ok zin los vahriin.”

 

They all turned to Cole who continued to sing unabashedly, “Wah dein vokul mahfaeraak ahst vaal.” 

 

This seemed to shock the group out of their stupor and they turned back to the carnage that was the other cliff. They saw Seranni standing on the undead dragon’s leg as the dragon took flight once more and was heading for them. The dragon barely hovered over the cliff before Seranni flipped away from the dragon’s leg and landed in the center of their camp with a fluidity and grace that Bull had only seen hints of. She was still glowing with power and she calmly came up to Gatt.

 

“The Iron Bull declared himself Tal-Vashoth the moment he blew that horn,” her voice even held power and Bull had to fight against his buckling knees and his cock. He wanted to both prostrate himself before her and fuck her into oblivion. “Had he not blown the horn I would have done the same thing, saved the Chargers and ordered him away from the Inquisition. However, he has chosen the path of Tal-Vashoth and is therefore under the protection of not only the Inquisition, but  _ me. _ You’re going to return to the Viddasala and inform her of everything you saw here today. You’re also going to tell her that that isn’t even all I can do. If she comes after what’s mine again, then her life is mine.”

 

Gatt looked like he was about to argue with her, but her eyes narrowed at him and he straightened himself to his full height, “I’m to inform you in the event of this happening you will not be receiving anymore reports from your Tal-Vashoth ally,” he sneered at them and Bull froze. Gatt had known from the beginning that this was a possibility. It had been a setup from the start, and they had been played. Someone was out to get them, someone in the Qun wanted them both to be Tal-Vashoth.

 

Bull stared down at the Dreadnaught as it began to sail away, he had an unreadable expression on his face, at least unreadable to Cassandra. She wondered at the woman at Bull’s side and was in awe of the power that shone around her. Cole suddenly appeared between them and grasped their hands. He pulled their hands together and stepped back as they embraced. 

 

“They needed each other, Hissrad died,” Cole explained.

 

Cassandra stared at Bull and understood, she turned and began clearing away the corpses. She told Cole to tell the Chargers to meet them up there and they would camp for the night right here, tents were already erected and Cassandra set to pulling a tarp to hang above them. They stood still as she worked around them, she was a doer. She wanted to fix things and they understood that.

 

She listened as they began to whisper to each other lines of what sounded like a prayer, ‘Shok ebasit hissra. Meraad astaarit, meraad itwasit, aban aqun. Maraas shokra. Anaan esaam Katari Ataashi.” Bull had stared at her with determination in his eyes as they spoke the last line.

 

Cassandra heard the crunch of the Chargers approaching their camp and saw Bull and Seranni reluctantly pull away from each other. They worked in unison Cassandra watched as they wordlessly warmed the area of their camp. Bull made a fire large enough to cook on, but small enough that it didn’t burn a hole in the tarp Cassandra had put up. At least the fire was small enough for that until Seranni cast a rune over the tarp rendering it fireproof.

 

By then the chargers had arrived and Dalish immediately began asking about the rune Seranni had cast on the tarp to make it fireproof. The Chargers teased the mages for talking about magic when Dalish wasn’t a mage, whatever joke that referenced, Cassandra had no clue and quickly retired to her tent.

 

Seranni was still reeling from the events of the day when she and Bull retired to their tent. He wordlessly stripped as she laid out their bedroll. He stripped himself naked and laid out before her and watched her as she slowly stripped out of her form fitting armor. He smiled to himself as he saw the ring of his marks surrounding both breasts. He brought up a hand and traced a finger between his marks. She shuddered at his attention and he pulled her to rest on top of him, she curled up on top of him as she used one hand and he used one hand and they undid her braid together. Their fingers brushed against each other and as each strand of hair came loose she felt parts of her body relax.

 

She pulled the blanket up and covered them up, her lying on top of him and once the blanket was in position, he tucked the sides of the blanket under her and curled himself around her. The feel of his heart beating beneath her ear became her breathing pattern and she soon fell asleep. Her last thought before unconsciousness engulfed her was ‘Katari Ataashi.’


	18. Stories of Skyrim

They awoke the next day on the Storm Coast, Bull still felt shaken by the events of the day before. He didn’t feel any different,  _ Shouldn’t I feel different? Shouldn’t there be some kind of monumental shift within me? Where is the madness that they said would befall every Tal-Vashoth when they broke from the Qun?  _ There was a shifting of the body on top of him.  _ Oh, yeah. There’s my madness. _ He grinned for a moment before he rolled to his side, plopping her onto the ground. She stirred with an ‘omph’ before she nuzzled back into his chest and promptly fell asleep once more. He shook his head down at her and stared at her in wonder. 

 

_ Do I even know her anymore? _ She certainly acted similar to the way she had once been with him in Seheron, but had that all been an act when he had been an agent of the Qun? His brow furrowed with questions until he heard the camp waking around them. He moved to wake her up, only to find her eyes boring into his. She looked concerned. 

 

“Do you regret it?” her fearful whisper pulled at his heart before he crashed his lips down to hers. 

 

“Never, but don’t think for a second you don’t have some explaining to do, Katari.”

 

She grinned up at him and he couldn’t help but smile at the relief in her eyes, “you have no idea how much I’ve wanted to tell you, everything. It’s a rather lengthy tale, so I’d rather wait till we got back to Skyhold and I didn’t have to repeat myself to Cullen, Josephine, and Lelianna.” 

 

He nodded his agreement. It made sense. They heard a rapping on the wooden post of their tent, “Inquisitor.” Cassandra’s voice called into the tent.

 

“We’re up, we’ll be out in a bit,” Seranni called for them. She grinned at him before she quickly dressed and left the tent so he would have more room to get ready. 

 

Seranni exited the tent to see Cassandra staring at her with a look of disappointment on her face. “You never told me about this.”

 

“I said I was powerful, I told you about my time as a vampire studying magic with Seranna, what did you expect?”

 

“You can summon an undead dragon!?!?!?!” Cassandra sounded like she was on the verge of screeching. 

 

Seranni shrugged, “Dovahkiin.” as if that explained everything. 

 

“What the hell does that mean?” Cassandra yelled. 

 

“Oi, keep it down, we got people out there trying to hunt down some breakfast,” Rocky grumbled at them. 

 

Seranni turned and looked out into the forest, her eyes began to glow before she quietly spoke, “Hircine, guide them.” an ethereal stag appeared before her, it nodded at her a moment before bounding off into the forest. She turned back to see Cassandra staring at her oddly.

 

“What the hell was that, now?” Cassandra sounded like she was at the end of her rope. She sounded like she had just found out her meek little daughter had suddenly turned into a warrior whose power rivaled that of the Gods. 

 

“I wanted to show off, Hircine is a being of the Hunt and will enjoy helping skilled hunters like the Chargers.” She shrugged and went down towards the horses. Cassandra watched as she talked with the horses before with a wave of her arm, Seranni summoned an undead horse wreathed in a blueish-purple flame, it’s bones an unnatural black and Cassandra shook her head as she turned away. It already felt like her brain was breaking under the strain of all that it had seen. 

 

The camp got underway and Seranni started wandering form the group, her undead horse scaling the steep rocks along the path as if they were a sloping hill. At one point Cassandra saw Seranni and her horse, Arvak, standing on a rock so steep, the horse was standing on air with only it’s front hooves touching the rock. She blinked at the obvious display of magic and wondered where Seranni had come from before appearing at the Conclave. 

 

Seranni signaled for her mount to jump down and she landed just as Bull rounded a corner and she began talking with him jovially. Cassandra was a little envious of their closeness, she wasn’t surprised by it given their history, but the feeling was still there. Cassandra vowed to make sure that she made herself available to Seranni at any time the woman wished to talk. Suddenly Seranni lay back and rested her back on her horse’s rump, her legs came up and rested on the creature’s head, but it maintained walking with the group. Cassandra pursed her lips and sped closer to Seranni. 

 

“That can’t be comfortable, Katari,” Bull was saying to her.

 

Seranni smirked, “feel it.” Bull looked at her oddly for a moment before reaching his hand out. He met resistance at about the location where flesh would have been. His eye widened in shock, the question forming on his lips. “I studied magic nearly nonstop for about a hundred years or so. Got really good at Illusions, I basically created the illusion of the feeling of a horse flank.”

 

“You spend a hundred years studying magic?” Bull’s voice held wonder and a little bit of trepidation. 

 

She shrugged, “I was a vampire at the time, but it got boring so I cured my Vampirism and went to an island called Solstheim. I’ll explain more when we get back, which reminds me.” Seranni let out a loud whistle and a black bird came down from the trees. She sat up and raised an arm for the bird to land on while she wiggled her fingers and a scroll of parchment came out of her sack, floated midair, and words began appearing on the parchment. Cassandra stared in awe as the words appeared on the scroll.

 

_ Lelianna,  _

_ Hey, so shit went down and I had to show off what I could do. Cassandra’s kind of freaked, so we’ll be needing to hold a meeting with Cullen, Josie, Cassandra, Bull,  _

 

“Should Solas be there too?” 

 

It took a minute for Cassandra to realize that Seranni was talking to her, she swallowed thickly and nodded, couldn’t hurt to have another mage’s opinion. 

 

_ and Solas. You are all probably going to be mad at me for not doing this sooner, but certain things had to happen before I decided to trust you guys. Most of that had to do with the Qun. I had to know where Bull stood and now I do. We should be arriving the day after tomorrow about midmorning. We could meet right away and break for lunch to cool off. Then meet back up in the afternoon to discuss things further if needed. _

_ ~Seranni, Inquisitor. _

 

The parchment rolled itself up and was sent off with the bird before she lay back down on her horse. She seemed relaxed and began softly singing an upbeat tune.

 

“ _ Oh, there once was a man named Ragnar the Red, who came riding to Whiterun from old Rorikstead,”  _ here she paused dramatically for a moment before smiling, “ _ and the braggart did swagger and brandish his blade, as he told of bold battles and gold he had made. _ ” Here she paused longer before sitting up and continuing, “ _ but then he went quiet, did Ragnar the Red, when he met the shield-maiden Matilda, who said;”  _ She paused a short moment and Bull grinned at her energy, “ _ oh you talk and you lie and you drink all our mead. Now I think it’s high time that you lie down and bleed! _ ” She brought her legs up and stood on Arvak as they walked and some of the Chargers began laughing, “ _ and so then came clashing and slashing of steel, as the brave lass Matilda charged in, full of zeal.”  _ She summed her ethereal sword and slashed through the air with precision, “ _ and the braggart named Ragnar was boastful not more-” _ she held the note for a moment. “ _ When his ugly red head rolled around on the floor. _ ”

 

Bull found himself laughing at the show and he couldn’t help but wonder, “where did that come from?”

 

“I would get bored on long trips, god, I swear I must have traversed that country like a thousand times. So I would sing, sometimes I’d fall off the horse and would flip back onto the horse, and that was before I got Arvak. It’s a lot easier to lay back and relax when I have a horse with some intelligence, isn’t it baby,” She crooned at her undead horse, which neighed as if happy for the praise.

 

“Then why-”   
  


“Did I ask you for help in caring for a horse?” She continued the question. “Well, it’s been over a hundred years or so since I cared for an actual live horse, if I want to blend in in a town I cast an illusion over Arvak. I didn’t bring him out yet, because I didn’t know how you guys felt about undead creatures. Then we found that horse in the bog the ‘Unicorn’. None of you reacted too adversely to Dorian taking the thing in so after all that yesterday I decided, ‘fuck it.’” She shrugged nonchalantly. 

 

The next oddity was that when they had to stop to camp, Seranni had to fight to get the horse to stop for the night. “Sorry, he’s used to it just being me and him, so I tell him where I want to go and he takes me, I sleep on his back. He’s undead so he doesn’t need to stop to eat, sleep, or piss.”

 

“How does he know where to go?” Bull questions.

 

“Well, here he wouldn’t, but back in Skyrim we had traversed across the country so much even  _ he _ knew where everything was,” She waved her hand and the horse disappeared. “He gets antsy if he’s in one place for too long, so I sent him back to his home plane.” 

 

“What happened to you?” Bull asked her wondrously.

 

She smiled at him, “sorry, I’m giving you, Cassandra, and the Chargers plenty of spoilers as it is. You’re gonna have to wait for the story just like everyone else.” 

 

“Speaking of stories,” they all turned to the unfamiliar voice and many of them stood with their weapons out and towards this newcomer. He was an unassuming looking man with light brown hair, his dark eyes shone with an intelligence that spoke of millenia worth of knowledge. His dark clothes hid him well in the shadows around their camp, and the shadows themselves seemed to be darker, more sinister. 

 

“Stand down,” Seranni called out and they only hesitated a moment before they complied, only to come to attention a second later when another stranger appeared. 

 

“Sugar tits!” the newcomer called out before Seranni punched the second newcomer in the face. “Owie, Mora! She hit me!” He fell to the ground and held his face in his hands, his was dressed rather oddly with clothing which seemed to be made of two different fabrics.

 

“Just as she does, every time you call her such names, one would think you would learn, Sheogorath,” the first newcomer, Mora, seemed acted much like a noble, whereas the second newcomer, Sheogorath acted like a small child. 

 

“What’s up?” Seranni shook her hand as she ignored the man on the ground.

 

“We want you to include Varric in your meeting tomorrow.” Seranni’s eyes narrowed. “Remember your deal, Champion.” 

 

“Yeah, yeah, I remember. Whose idea was it?” She waved off his warning. Bull and Cassandra’s eyes narrowed in suspicion. 

 

“Asura,” Seranni scoffed at Mora’s answer, “she wants to make sure you hold up your end of the deal. Whether you like it or not.”

 

“And of course the way for me to uphold my end right now, would be to invite Varric.” She rolled her eyes, seemingly annoyed. “Fine, I think his team was supposed to have a rest week this week.” Her fingers waved and the scene with the parchment repeated itself only the message was for Varric to join them as well. Then she waved her hand again and the parchment disappeared. Cassandra blinked a moment.

 

“Could you have done that with the letter earlier?” Cassandra asked. She nodded, before yawning. 

 

The noble man, Mora, looked at Seranni in concern. “You should rest, Champion.” 

 

Seranni looked back at him with a raised eyebrow, “Mora-”

 

“We will be taking our leave, now Champion,” Mora bowed respectfully and grabbed the man from the ground. They disappeared into the shadows. Seranni sat down on a log, brought her legs up and sat on the log cross legged before she flopped back and rested with her back on the ground with her legs still resting on the log. 

 

“Why does my life have to be the complicated one?” she groaned.

 

“So what was all that about? What deal? Champion?” Bull asked while leaning back to look her in the eye. 

 

“That’s part of the story, Ataashi,” she said softly as she threw an arm across her face.

***

 

They walked through the gates of Skyhold and they were immediately ushered to the meeting that Seranni had called, Horsemaster Dennet paused a moment at Seranni’s undead steed until she waved her hand and the horse disappeared. He shook his head and rolled his shoulders as if forcing himself to roll with it at this point. 

 

Seranni smiled apologetically at him before she, Bull, and Cassandra made their way to the War Room. Everyone settled in the room and Seranni stood before them all. She saw Varric looking confused. “Varric, you’re going to want to pull out something to take notes on.” He regards her carefully for a moment before he reaches into his nearby bag and pulled out parchment and quill. 

 

“As you know I was a Saarebas under the Qun and that’s how I grew up, but what happened after I left Seheron is what is the issue right now.” She took a deep breath, “I had almost reached the mountain pass out of Tevinter when a woman appeared before me. She told me that I wasn’t strong enough and used magic to push me backwards into a mirror. Through that mirror I fell through another and into another world entirely. I know this because I studied the geography of that world rather extensively. That and the time difference.”

 

“Time difference?” Cullen asked.

 

“I spent at least a hundred years as an undead vampire studying magic. Since Bull isn’t dead, I have to theorize that there must be a time shift between realms. Anyway, so I fall through the mirror and I get captured in some ambush because the country I landed in had to be in the middle of a civil war. So naturally my first experience in a new world is to be sent to the executioner's block for being in the wrong place at the wrong time.” She glanced pointedly at Cassandra and she looked sheepish.

 

Seranni smiled, letting them know she was just teasing before she continued, “So just as I’m about to lose my head, a giant black dragon arrives and starts killing everyone. I managed to escape and made my way to the nearest city called Whiterun, there I brought them new of the dragons and I helped them kill a dragon that was attacking one of their watchtowers. When that dragon died, it glowed. I absorbed it’s soul. That’s not the first time that had happened to me, but it was the first time that I had an explanation.

 

“They called me Dovahkiin, Dragonborn.  Apparently somewhere in my bloodline, dragonblood got introduced and thus when dragons die around me I absorb their souls. Each time I absorb their souls I can use their knowledge of their language and use what are called Shouts, which is what I did out on the Storm Coast.” Seranni stopped talking for a moment and stepped back from them for a moment. 

 

“Mul-Qah-Diiv,” Bull felt the power of the Shout and her body glowed once more. The ethereal light swirling around her body. His cock lept with the thought of fucking her while this energy surrounded her. She seemed to know his thoughts as she shot him a look of pure lust. “My senses are rather heightened when I use this Shout.” Bull smirked at her at that and she continued her story while Varric wrote furiously across his parchment. 

 

“So being Dragonborn I was called by an order of essentially monks that called themselves the Greybeards and found myself caught between them and an order of warriors called the Blades when the Blades asked me to kill the dragon that the Greybeards practically worshiped. I allowed the dragon to live and the Blades never really forgave me, so I tended to avoid them after that. Then I found an ancient Scroll that tends to exist outside of time called an Elder Scroll which gave me the knowledge of how to use a shout created by man called Dragonrend. It allows me to force a dragon to the ground and keeps it on the ground for a short amount of time.” She waited for the shouts of disapproval to begin, when the noise grew to be too great she shouted once more. 

 

“Kaan-Drem-Ov” immediately they all felt a peace settle around them. “Yes I could have used that shout in Have on that dragon Corypheus called forth, but the end result would have been the same and not only would Haven have fallen, but then we would have nothing with which to surprise our enemy.” Their arguments died on their lips and she continued her story.

 

“Using that shout I killed the dragon that had originally saved my life, he was Alduin, World destroyer. There to bring about the end of that world. In order to save that world I had to kill him, so I did. After that I went to the Mages college in Winterhold where I ended up becoming the Archmage. Then I went back to Whiterun where I had killed my first dragon and joined the companions. I became a werewolf and after that I joined the Thieves Guild, became  _ their _ leader after the previous guild master tried to kill me. Then I killed an old lady that was being abusive to the orphans in her care and was picked up by the Dark Brotherhood. A league of Assassins, became their leader after their leader betrayed me and left me for dead.”

 

“I’m beginning to sense a pattern,” Cassandra sounded disgruntled at the number of people that had apparently tried to kill her. 

 

“Yeah, not even done yet. Then I figured I was tired of their civil war going on in the background, so after killing the emperor with the Dark Brotherhood, I joined the Imperial Legion and basically ended their civil war single handedly. Got bored after that and joined some Vampire Hunters. Decided the Vampire Hunters were too boring and became a Vampire instead. Werewolfism was no longer a problem and spent the next hundred years or so studying magic with my sire Seranna.”

 

“Seranna?” Varric piped up.

 

She grimaced, “Yeah, she realized that everyone had been calling me Dragonborn or Dovahkiin since my arrival there and thus decided I needed a name. So she named me after herself, she was kind of arrogant.” 

 

“Kind of?”

 

“What happened after your hundred years of study,” Solas’ voice sounded strained. 

 

“I got bored, so I went to Morthal and had my Vampirism cured. I hopped on a boat after that and headed to an island called Solstheim. There I faced an ancient Dragonborn that was trying to kill me and free himself from Hermaeus Mora. Mora, whom some of you met last night, is what’s called a Daedric prince. He called me champion last night because all of the Daedric Princes call me Champion. So rather than fight over my soul after I die, they made me their liaison to other worlds. So I spread the knowledge of the Daedric Princes, thus potentially expanding their worship base and I get to go to different worlds. Just got lucky that I got sent here.”

 

“Holy Shit,” was all Varric could say at the end of that. The group looked at her, stunned, Solas looked curious and wanting to ask her questions of all sorts, but before he could, she held up her hand.

 

“We should break for lunch, we can meet back here after lunch and I will answer any questions you have, but I think it best for us all to eat something.” They nodded numbly and left the War Room silently as they all headed for the Tavern. Bull walked at her side, sliding into step beside her as if it were second nature for him. 

***

 

That night in the Inquisitor’s quarters, Bull sat in front of the fire and stared into the flames. Seranni watched him from the top of the stairs that led up to her quarters. His eyepatch was off and to the side, he turned to look at her. She didn’t flinch at the angry sight of where his eye used to be. She had seen and caused much worse on the battlefield and after hearing of how it had happened from Krem, it made her love the man before her even more. 

 

She crossed the room and knelt before him, her body resting between his legs. His eyes flickered across her face before it landed on her bare neck. His fingers ghosted over where her Saarebas collar used to reside. Her eyes shuttered close. 

 

“You wouldn’t think it, but I miss it. The collar, the security it was supposed to represent. That I was cared for. That I belonged to someone. You know I only had one really bad caretaker, for only three years, Bull.” 

 

She stood and tilted his head upwards with her rise. She straddled his lap and lightly pressed her lips to his. He gently took hold of her hands and brought them to rest at her back. He snapped his fingers, and she made rope appear in his hands. He grinned at her in approval and bound her arms behind her back. Once finished he ran the rope with his fingers up her shoulders as he felt her muscles and ensured they were comfortable. 

 

He then lightly wrapped the rope around her neck, not enough to restrict anything, but enough that she felt it’s presence. He then rose with her trussed up in his arms and her legs wrapping around his hips. He kissed her lips and his hand rubbed at the back of her neck, sliding the rope along her neck, causing her to moan at the feeling. He pulled back a moment and flicked at her breast through her clothes, his lips caressed her ear, “remove them, from both of us.” Her fingers twitched behind her back and the clothing that covered their bodies was suddenly on the floor beside them, whether any of the clothes had been melded together he had no idea and didn’t care at the moment. She would fix it later. 

 

He growled his approval and swiftly entered her as he pressed her against the nearby wall. One hand gravitated to her hip, gripping in a bruising hold that made their pleasure skyrocket as Seranni clenched her legs to pull them closer together. Seranni felt her mind cloud as Bull kissed her and his tongue roughly pushed hers aside and dominated her mouth. His tongue fucked her mouth as his hips thrust against hers. She felt herself being deprived of air and closed her eyes as she surrendered herself to Bull and is actions. 

 

He felt her relax against him and pulled back to see her surrender to him. Some primal part of his core preened at her submission as his hips never broke their rhythm. He quickly wrapped the rope around her chest so he could hold her by the rope and have her cradled by the rope. He grabbed her by the knot between her breasts and pulled her away from the wall. He then held her perpendicular to his body and gripped her hips with his other hand. He paused a moment before he lifted her a moment and slammed their bodies together so deep that Seranni screamed her pleasure. He watched as miniature magical lightning bolts arced up her skin and his skin tingled where it arced across her legs which were wrapped around his hips.

 

She couldn’t hold onto her mind as waves upon waves of pleasure washed over her. Her magic arcing across her skin and bleeding onto Bull’s. He roared his release shortly after she had screamed hers. Her muscles not yet having a chance to relax before his completion had joined hers. 

 

He pulled her torso up and walked her over to the bed, he lay her gently on the bed and ran his finger across her skin for a moment, drinking in the sight of her. A plan formed in his mind and grinned as her eyes began to droop. He gently removed the rope from her body and by the time he was done, she was asleep. A limp rag doll as he lay her back down on the bed. She looked more relaxed than he had seen her since their initial reunion. It seemed as if coming clean had meant more to her than she had admitted. He grinned down at her, “Katari Ataashi. Sleep well. My Katari.” 

***

 

Hawke finally contacted them about meeting in Crestwood. After they met with Hawke and his Grey-warden Friend. They left the cave and saw a dragon flying overhead, “Why do I feel like you could take off right now, fly up on that dragon you summon and kill that dragon before we could make it to the dam?” 

 

Seranni grinned sheepishly at Cassandra, “cause it’s true.” 

 

Bull shook his head at his Katari and they headed for the fort that led to the dam controls. Bull was starting to feel like his old self again and things felt like they were finally returning to normal between Cassandra and Seranni. Cassandra realized that Seranni liked the mother-henning she did and had then continued doing it, despite what they had all learned about her power. 

***

 

They returned to Skyhold and the following week was spent in preparation for the Ball at Halamshiral, Seranni had managed to convince Josephine to allow for Vivienne to come as well as the Grand Enchanter. She wanted every angle she could get with southern politics that she didn’t see the point of. The Ball wasn’t for another month, but one could never be too prepared. Bull had been acting oddly that week and had spent quite a bit of time in the Undercroft with Dagna, but when she asked what was going on Bull just said it was a surprise.

 

She sat with the Chargers in the Tavern, listening to them exchange stories until Bull walked into the tavern with a new bag slung over his shoulder, he spotted her and nodded her to follow him. She rose and followed him, she waited for him to speak as she followed him up to the top of her little castle. They walked the battlements for a bit as she saw him take breath after breath trying to subtly calm himself down. _ He was nervous, why was he nervous? _

 

Suddenly two guards approached them and something about them seemed off. It was confirmed when Bull rolled his eye at them in annoyance and he turned just as one threw a dagger at him. It stuck out of his shoulder until he grabbed it and threw it into the throat of the man who had threw it at him.

 

“Ebost Issala, Tal-Vashoth,” the guard left spat at Bull. In response Bull threw him over the side of the wall.

 

“Yeah, yeah, my soul is dust. Yours is scattered all over the ground so,” Bull gripped his shoulder and saw that Seranni had already healed it.

 

“This was a formality,” she looked at the guard who lay at her feet.

 

“Yeah, and a reminder that they aren’t done with me. They’ll call on me one day.” Seranni nodded her agreement and her gaze moved to the bag that had fallen from his shoulder in the midst of the fight. She watched him as he moved slowly to retrieve the bag and he stared at it.

 

“It was also a reminder that I’m Tal-Vashoth. Tal-Va-fucking-shoth.”

 

Seranni channeled her magic into her right hand and let her hand fly, hitting him in the arm as hard as she could, “You’re a good man, Qun or no. You are a good man. How do you think I felt that first night I woke up and no demon had possessed me in my sleep and killed everyone around me.” She grasped his horns in her grip and made him look at her in the eyes.

 

Bull saw the raw determination in her eyes and stared at her, soaking her in. He leaned his forehead against hers, “thanks, Katari Ataashi.”

 

She smiled at him, “Katari Ataashi. So, what’s in the bag?”

 

Bull’s face broke into a smile and he quickly threw the body of the other dead soldier over the side of the wall. He pulled her to sit next to him on the ground in the middle of the battlement. She smiled at him and waited as he pulled the bag to lay in his lap, first he pulled out a necklace. It looked like a dragon’s tooth broken in half with a magical foci embedded in the dawnstone that capped the tooth. It looked beautiful and he placed it in her hands, she turned it over in her hands and saw that it wasn’t just any dawnstone. It was Fade-touched Dawnstone, she could tell that the foci carried a charge of it’s own and that the dawnstone would carry the magical charge to whatever the tooth was connected to.

 

She looked back to him and froze, her eyes widened at what was in his hands. It was a dark leather strip of Dragon Scales fashioned into a collar. She saw more fade-touched dawnstone weaving a pattern around the collar, as it lay in Bull’s hands she saw the somehow the dawnstone acted more like cloth than stone and that it lined tiny diamond shaped ivory white stones. She reached a hand towards it and realized that it was bone, dragon bone. It was the other half of the dragon tooth that she held in her hands.

 

She looked at the pieced curiously until Bull pulled a rod made of Dragon Bone that had dawnstone inlaid in carvings on the rod. She sensed magic in the rod and marveled at the beauty of it all, she looked to the top of the rod and saw an opening at the top that looked to fit the dragon tooth she held in her hands. She realized the foci in the tooth charged the rod and she felt a connection between all three items.

 

Bull laid the pieces in his lap and looked into her eyes, “Cassandra can’t be there every time you need it. When Cassandra does it, other mages can feel it in the air. You know this that’s why you have her do it in far away places. No one else would be able to feel this.”

 

She stared at the items as understanding dawned on her, he had taken the control rod a step further and had broken it all apart, why? She picked up the control rod and saw that it was shaped just like her old one. The one she had lost in the destruction of Haven. She had missed its familiar weight against her leg and stared at him at a loss for words.

 

“I won’t do this with you unless you place these items where you want them,” she stared at him for a long moment and when she placed the rod on the ground between them he didn’t react. He didn’t move when she stood and placed the dragon tooth foci around his neck. He still didn’t move when she picked up the rod for a moment before placing it on her leg where she still wore the leather straps. Only then did she look at him and knelt before him.

 

“I want you to place it,” she bowed her head to him and he gently placed the collar around her neck. Once the ends of the collar met there was a small glow from all three items. Dagna had told him that it meant they were active. Bull stood and pulled her to stand with him.

 

“We need to be in our rooms, now,” he growled in her ear.

 

Seranni grinned and bent the Fade around her to make the distance to their rooms closer and they were there within three steps. Once there, Bull crashed his lips to hers and pushed her up against one of the stone walls of their room. Clothes quickly were removed as their hands moved across each other’s bodies with practiced ease.

 

***

He lifted her with ease and she summoned the rope to her hand just as easily. He lay her on the bed and took the rope from her hand. She had gotten him pink dyed rope that wasn’t too soft, but wasn’t too rough either. He didn’t know what strings she had had to pull to get it, but he didn’t care, he loved the things they accumulated together. He wrapped and knotted one length of rope to her wrist so that she had something to grab onto and pulled it up to wrap around the bed post. He wove the rope to frame her breasts and he pinned her other arm into position behind her back.

 

As he wove his rope across her body she relaxed into the familiar sensations flowing through her body. Bull moved away and she opened her eyes to see him staring at her, “I should really get this painted, we could hang it over the fireplace.”

 

She smiled up at him, “only if we get one of you standing on a dragon skull for the main hall.”

He hummed and ghosted his lips over her breasts, “why the main hall?”

 

Seranni groaned as he bit down on a mark that had been fading from her skin, “so that when I’m judging these people, I can enjoy the view.”

 

“Oh,” he questioned as he removed himself from her breast and leaned across her body. He propped his head up on one arm and used his other hand to play at her nipple. He pinched and twisted the nipple, eliciting moans from the woman beneath him. He grinned at her wickedly as his mouth latched onto her other breast and she arched herself off the bed and grasped at the rope with her other hand. He let her buck into him as he suckled her breast.

 

Suddenly he pulled away and blew gently on the breast that his mouth had just been on. She moaned deeply at the sensation and just as suddenly his mouth was on her other breast and instead of kneading her other breast, his fingers split open her folds. His fingers entered her roughly and he let her continue to buck into his hand, trying to bring them closer. He brought her close to the edge and he suddenly pulled away.

 

She whimpered at the sudden loss of sensation and watched him desperately as he pulled the dragon bone rod from her pile of clothes and he grinned at the hopeful curiosity he saw in her eyes. He pulled the dragon tooth from around his neck and placed it in the holder of the rod. The rod glowed for a moment as the magic connected to the foci and she felt her collar sizzle against her skin for a moment.

 

“I had to spend four hours with Dagna before she was happy that I understood how to work this thing,” he smiled ruefully at her, “She kind of went nuts with the different things it could do, because I had told her what I wanted and that money wasn’t an issue, she hugged me. I think she’s been wanting us to get together for a while.”

 

She quirked an eyebrow at him, “apparently she ‘shipps’ a bunch of people all over Skyhold. That’s the way she put it anyway, I don’t know. First things first, safe word?”

 

“Talos,” as soon as the word left her lips the dragon’s tooth foci popped out of the rod and into Bull’s waiting hand. He grinned as she looked at him with an expression that said, ‘Only you.’ He put the foci back in the rod and ran his fingers across the surface of the rod and sudden pain erupted all over her, but far less intense than a Smite or her control rod. It felt more like his fingers were scraping across her skin. He ran his fingers across the surface of the rod again and the pain seemed to come from further within her. It was as if her magic was kneading against her from within rather than tearing her apart.

 

Suddenly that all stopped and he placed the rod gently back among the clothes and placed the foci back around his neck, “that was fun, but I want to play with you.”

 

He flipped her onto her front and pulled her legs up with her ass in the air, he grinned a moment before his hand came down on her ass with a loud smack. He rubbed his hand in circles over the skin and smacked her ass on the other cheek and soothed the skin again. He entered the thumb of his other hand inside her cunt and continued smacking at her ass in a random pattern. He continued this until he felt her come on his fingers and he quickened his movements for a moment, his smacks coming quicker as his thumb moved within her.

 

She screamed as her orgasm intensified at his actions and she rode the waves of her orgasm. Her body twitched as she came down from the high and she felt him line himself up with her entrance. He entered her in one swift motion, causing a mixture of pain and pleasure to radiate from her center. She surrendered herself to the feeling as Bull grabbed the rope gathered at her back and pulled her upwards and flipped them so he lay on the bed, propped against the pillows and untied her arm from the bedpost and instead attached it to where her other arm lay at her back. She faced the room and her eyes were drawn to the mirror that had been strategically placed at the foot of their bed.

 

She watched him enter her as he easily lifted her form and she was impaled repeatedly as she bounced on his lap. She watched him as he leaned up close behind her and brought his hands to her nipples and began to knead them again. She moaned as he pulled and twisted her nipples with every movement bringing her closer to breaking he increased the pace beneath her and she felt him come closer to the edge.

 

Suddenly he lifted her completely off of him and carried her over to her desk, she grinned in anticipation. He lay her face down on the half of the desk they kept clear for just this reason. He pinned her in place with a hand to her forearms behind her back. He swiftly entered her and roughly fucked her. Her hips slammed into the desk and she wanted to scream as pleasure and pain mounted within her and she found herself orgasming again, but he continued to fuck her roughly against the desk. It wasn’t until she was crying out in languages even she didn’t know that he finally released himself within her.

***

 

Bull gently lifted her and carried her back to the bed. He gently undid all the rope that bound her, he left the bed to put the rope away, pulled out their elfroot salve for the really bad marks, and proceeded to rub some on her hips where they had met the desk. She moaned and tiredly shifted towards him. He grinned and placed a hand firmly on her stomach to stop her from moving. He finished with the elfroot salve and went to the tray of water and food he had brought up earlier.


	19. Wicked Hearts

She didn’t know what she had expected, but this Morrigan was interesting, but ultimately unhelpful in their search for the apparent assassin that was hiding themselves behind this ‘game’ Orlesian nobles insisted on playing. She saw no point in it, but ultimately went along with it all because Cassandra had told her to listen to Josephine. After that particular lesson, Seranni decided to make things go faster and researched everything she could about Orlesian nobles and their ‘game.’

 

Then to get all dressed up just to show off how pretty you are, she wondered why she had agreed to wearing these fancy dresses. Suddenly the crowd parted and she had a perfect view of Bull in his black suit that hugged his muscles. His dawnstone dragon tooth foci dangling from his neck as he made a show of eating the food from the buffet table. Oh yeah, that was why she agreed to these frilly costumes.

 

Cassandra walked by and she was reminded of what had happened at the beginning of the ball, when they had announced everyone. Seranni Dovahkiin Pentaghast, huh? She could work with that, no wonder Josephine had been giving her odd looks every so often since before Haven’s destruction. She had immediately looked to her to see a look of guilt over being found out cross the woman’s face. She had looked to Bull next to see him holding back a grin, he knew and hadn’t told her. She glared at him playfully and he had just grinned at her.

 

She smiled at him ruefully and made her way over to him, “meet anyone interesting?”

 

“Just the Empress’ arcane advisor,” she tried for nonchalance and he picked up on it. He led her out to one of the balconies for a moment and made sure they were alone.

 

“What is it?”

 

“She’s powerful, but ultimately useless to us right now, no one here knows what to make of the Dovahkiin, they’re wondering if I’m part Avaar or something, it’s actually kind of funny.” He raised an eyebrow at her snort of amusement. She gave Bull’s arm a squeeze and entered once more into the fray. She read through the room, as Bull and Seranni had taught her. Despite spending the majority of her time with the vampires studying, she had had to play the politics a little and managed not to kill anyone, nor give anything away as she not only managed to save the Empress’ life and in her annoyance brokered a sort of truce between Celine, Brialla, and Gaspard. Morrigan had just finished telling her she would be meeting them at Skyhold and Seranni was taking a moment to herself as she leaned against the railing of the balcony.

 

She heard Bull silently lean against the rail of the balcony next to her, “come on, let’s dance.” He grasped her hand and gently pulled her to follow him, giving her a chance to say no if she wanted. She smiled at him as he led her out onto the dancefloor. Her dress was in tatters after the battles they had had. The claws of one particular terror demon had raked it's claws down her back and her dress had torn. She heard whispers of the Qunari symbol branded into her back, but she didn’t care. She was in Bull’s arms and he twirled her along the dance floor, suddenly he began lifting her into the air and when he threw her into the air she pulsed her magic through her mark, causing it to glow. It reflected it eerie green light against the chandelier and he caught her as she landed.

 

He held her close as he continued to twirl her around, he suddenly dipped her and she brought her hand up to pull him into a kiss. Murmurs and whispers sounded throughout the room as they speculated about the Inquisitor and her Qunari lover. She had the feeling Josephine would be doing a lot of damage control from the fallout that would happen from this, but she didn’t care at the moment. Bull pulled back from her and put her back upright, her eyes moved from Bull’s to a noble woman in the background. She was grinning right at them.

 

Their eyes locked and Seranni froze in Bull’s arms as the noblewoman’s face morphed into that of the Viddasala’s. Again, she had the legs and tail of a desire demon again and this time she saw a purple flame hovering above her head. Her heart hammered in her chest and she heard Bull saying her name from far away. The Viddasala saw her reaction and began cackling and as the sound filled her very being she disappeared into the shadows and suddenly she couldn’t breathe. She had enough control over herself to use the quick release and push the dragon bone rod into his hands.

 

She immediately crashed to the floor and began screaming as tears fell from her face. She opened her eyes and only saw herself at eight years old, tears streaming down her face. Fire erupted all over her body as memories flashed through before her eyes. Pain like she had never before experience shot through her body and she couldn’t stop her screaming. As she watched herself from the viewpoint of her victims she watched as her face closed off more and more. She saw her eyes deaden more and more over the years, but just as her eyes at reached their peak the cycle started over and she was young again. Each time the vision changed the pain she felt intensified and she felt as if she were losing her mind from the pain.

 

The salt of her tears blended into the wounds around her face that the fire had made. As time went on she began to experience moments before the fire where she had helped Dathrasi torture people. She felt her back pop from the unnatural arch she made as she felt electricity course through her. She began to feel the daggers that Dathrasi used on his victims and she felt her own blood trickle down her legs as wounds opened where Dathrasi had cut.

 

Suddenly, as if they appeared from nowhere, she saw Cassandra and Bull. Sweat shone on Cassandra’s forehead as Bull looked to be sporting burns from someone’s attack. She turned her head and saw Lelianna, Cullen, and Josephine standing along the wall looking at her with concern. _Why are they looking at me like that?_ _Someone had attacked Bull!_ She saw Vivienne kneeling beside her with sweat shining her brow as well. It looked like she was trying to heal her, _why were they-?_ Pain racked her body as her mind caught up to reality and she screamed at the onslaught of sensation.

 

“Talos,” she screamed and the pain reduced by about half and all the pain left her gradually after that.

 

She saw Bull immediately place the foci around his neck and placed the rod on the table that was next to her bed. He helped her to sit up and helped her to eat and drink. She saw Cassandra stumble to a chair that had been placed next to her and she saw Cassandra fight against her exhaustion. Vivienne kept healing her as Bull continued to help her eat. _What was going on?_ Her eyes looked around and her eyes landed on her body. She froze, mid-bite, her body was covered in cuts, bruises, burns, her toes looked to have the beginnings of frostbite.

Her brain took a moment to catch up and she remembered everything that she had seen, from the Viddasala at the ball to now.

 

Sitting here with Bull while Vivienne tried to heal her, she took stock of her magic and realized that she was indeed magically exhausted. Seranni raised a hand to Vivienne and grasped her arm lightly. Vivienne pulled away from her as if she had burned the woman. She looked and saw that she had indeed burned the woman, she looked at Cassandra and saw burn marks on her as well. She looked to her advisors and saw burn marks on all of them as well.

 

“I’m so-” she began until Bull pulled her face towards his, he saw the determination and understanding in his eye.

 

“Rule number 6. Tell me.”

 

“Never say you’re sorry, it’s a sign of weakness.” Bull nodded and let her settle back against his chest. She saw the five other people in the room look at them confused and she pulled her legs up to her chest. “There are moments where apologies are needed, rule number 6 means an apology wasn’t needed. I did all of that to you all, didn’t I.”

 

She wasn’t asking and none of them moved, but she could see her answer in their eyes. The only eyes that didn’t hold fear were Cassandra’s, Bull’s, and Lelianna’s. They all remained silent until Bull felt satisfied she had eaten and drank enough. Bull nodded to Lelianna and the spymaster moved to sit beside them on the bed.

 

“What happened?” she asked the woman.

 

“We were hoping you could tell us,” Lelianna responded gently. Seranni’s eyes immediately fell down to the bed.

 

“I saw her, I saw the Viddasala. She’s a desire demon, I know that now. She had taken the form of one of the nobles, I had kept an eye on her because I had seen her watching events very closely, but keeping herself apart from it all,” she whispered.

 

“Everyone’s eyes were on you all night, what was so special about this one,” Lelianna prodded.

 

“Her eyes never left me, when the Duchess was revealed to be the assassin not only did her eyes not leave me, but she didn’t look surprised. Rule number 12.”

 

“Always watch the watchers,” Bull spoke up.

 

“Who is the Viddasala,” Cassandra spoke up. The looks that passed between Cassandra and Seranni told Bull that Cassandra had heard about her, but had not pressed the issue. She was pressing now.

 

“She’s the one in charge of all things magical within the Qun,” Bull explained. He placed a hand on Seranni’s chest and used it to help her match her breathing to his.

 

“When I was a child she assigned my Arvaarad to me, after he ‘tested’ me she sent us to Seheron. As she walked away I saw her body sort of melt a bit before she morphed into a Desire demon,” she wanted to melt into Bull’s body, but she knew she needed to tell them about this.

 

“Have you ever had visions like that before,” Cassandra asked. Seranni nodded at her. “I think it’s time we heard them, Seranni,” Cassandra’s voice was gentle, but firm.

 

She swallowed annoyedly, she really didn’t want to talk about this, bad enough she saw shit. She sighed and looked at them all, her eyes fell to Vivienne and she saw that the woman wanted to leave the room, “does Vivienne need to be here?”

 

Vivienne saw the intent behind her question and looked at her gratefully before she gracefully excused herself and Seranni began to subtly heal herself. Cassandra pursed her lips in disapproval as she felt Seranni’s magic begin to work quietly, not just on herself, but on everyone in the room.

 

“I saw a vision happen with Solas, he didn’t turn into a demon or anything, but he was younger. I think I just saw him when he was younger. Then, with Gatt on the Storm Coast. He had a rune in his forehead that meant Desire.”

 

“And tonight?” Bull prodded.

 

“She waited until we had foiled the plot against the Empress so I don’t think she’s helping Corypheus. Then her form melted away again and she became the Desire demon. Then all I saw and felt was my past, from a different viewpoint. My past with Dathrasi.” She saw the moment of understanding dawn on Bull’s face and he held her close to him.

 

“She worked with her Arvaarad in Seheron for three years before he died. He died because he was an idiot and everyone else owed her their lives. But during those three years she had assisted him in torturing Tal-Vashoth rebels,” Culled looked at her with horror in his eyes.

 

“She was very young when all this happened, she did as she was told and was a very good Saarebas,” Seranni curled up in his arms and Bull held her as she fell asleep, “I acted as her stand-in Arvaarad after Dathrasi died.”

 

“She called her Arvaarad, Dathrasi?” Lelianna asked.

 

“It essentially means cow in Qunlat,” Bull smiled to himself and sighed, “she’s been through a lot in her life. I don’t know how she’s remained sane.”

 

“I don’t know if she has,” Lelianna said quietly, but was heard by everyone in the room, “Josie, how much damage control are we looking at from tonight?”

 

“Not as much as I was expecting, they are thinking that one of the other nobles cast a spell over the Inquisitor for foiling Duchess Florianne’s plot. It sounds like that wasn’t too far from what this Viddasala made it seem. Many of the other nobles have rallied to her in her defense and have made it very unpopular not to support us. She left quite the impression on the nobles, she listened attentively to them and gave nothing away. She showed herself to be a capable player of the game and that has impressed many Nobles,” Josephine rattled off.

 

“Good, now Empress Celine said that she could use this room for the night, so Cassandra and Bull will stay here with her and we’ll have our people stationed outside,” Lelianna looked at Cullen pointedly. He nodded and just as he left to position people, Cole appeared in the room.

 

“She sent me away, Desire sent me away. I couldn’t help her and she needed. Desire knew I was there,” Cole stared at Seranni for a moment before sitting himself in the spot that Lelianna had just vacated. Josephine and Lelianna left the group of three to watch over the Inquisitor and went about their duties. Lelianna hovered at her door a moment before she turned and headed down the hall. The scars that ran down the Inquisitors right hand made more sense from the pattern of flames she had seen dance across both her and The Iron Bull that night. She knew that he would have a scar on his chest and arms from the event. Oddly enough both wounds didn’t look as she remembered scars from other burn victims she had seen. Theirs looked less like wounded puckered skin and more like tattoos of flames that flowed across their skin like water.


	20. A Friend in Need

They returned from Halamshiral and they were all exhausted by the trip and the events that had happened after the ball. Solas had begun cornering her on more information about Skyrim, she had already been sharing necromancy books with Dorian and they formed a sort of book club of her books from Skyrim. They were curious as to how she had continued to provide them with book after book. There was no way she could have brought all these books with her. So she them to her quarters and showed them Hermaeus Mora’s Seven Black Books. They watched as she took a book from Thedas that she had been reading and had actually just finished the night before. She placed the Tedas book on top of one of the Black Books and the two mages watched, fascinated, as the book from Thedas seemed to melt into the Black Book beneath it. Dorian’s fingers itched to read such books.

 

“No, Dorian, you read these books you run the risk of insanity or death,” she warned. 

 

“But you turned out okay,” he nearly whined.

 

“Because I had already made a positive acquaintance of their owner, and I had just spent a hundred years doing nothing but playing a vampiric political game and researching and practicing magic. Magic is like a muscle, kind of, the more you exercise it, the stronger it gets. Now, just like with muscles, most people reach a sort of plateau in power. I have yet to find my plateau. I have so much power at my fingers, I can either be scared of it and allow it to rule me, or I can revel in it. Expand on it.  _ I am a special case _ , Dorian,” she said this last bit as a warning to Dorian. She waved her hand and a stranger appeared from a ring of purple energy.

 

“A butler’s work is never done,” the man sighed, he appeared to be wearing a suit, much like Mora had and appeared to be some noble of some sort. 

 

“Take the books for storage, please,” she orders the butler who nods and begins gathering the books. 

 

That night Solas entered the Fade to search for answers. This creature could not be from Thedas originally. She had to have come from somewhere, he quickly found Wisdom and asked her what she had seen of the Inquisitor’s dreams. Sometimes secrets buried by age, such as infant memories came to the surface as one dreamed. She told him that she hadn’t seen anything useful, no memories of her birth. There was just too much of Seranni’s past to sift through. The only hint had been the memories of Mythal sending this poor girl to other worlds to ‘strengthen her up.’  _ Why does Mythal want her to be so powerful? What purpose could she possibly have?  _

 

He followed Mythal’s memory pathways in the Fade. He didn’t do it very often, and could prove to be dangerous, but he followed. He followed her through the Fade till she left the Fade and appeared with a babe from another world. He watched as she walked across the Fade and appeared in the real world on the coast of Par Vollen.

 

“Shit, not where I wanted to go,” he heard her grumble in the memory. She looked to be about to leave until a shout went up, she grimaced and lay the baby down in the sand. “Sorry kiddo, guess this is where you’ll grow strong. I’ll find you a Tama to help you.” 

 

Solas changed tactics and followed the baby as it was found by what appeared to be a Qunari woman, until her form morphed and changed into that of a Desire demon. She took the baby to a cave and held the baby up to the shadows. 

 

“My Lord, I have brought the child as you requested,” Desire kneeled before the shadowy figure and there was something familiar about the figure, but Solas couldn’t place it.

 

“Good, now take this child with you and watch over her,” the shadowy figure dismissed Desire and understanding dawned on Solas’ face when he saw Desire take the form of the race of Qunari once more and left with the child in her arms.

 

The Shadowy figure suddenly became sharper than a mere memory and he knew he was standing in the presence of the shadow of an Evanuris, “Ah, Dread Wolf. I wonder if you know why my wife brought such a creature here. You were, after all, her favorite.”

 

Solas remained silent, “ah, you don’t know who I am do you Fen’Harel. Ha ha ha, I’ll leave that for you to figure that out. I wonder if you’ll figure it out, what my wife is planning. In the mean time, you may want to check on your  _ Friends in the Fade _ .”

 

The shadow laughed at him for a bit longer and when no more information was forthcoming from the figure, Solas decided that it was time for him to leave the Fade. Solas retraced his steps through the Fade and went to the place where he had left Wisdom and saw that she was gone. Wisdom disappeared from time to time, but something felt different this time. Suddenly a vision of Wisdom in the real world filled his mind. Her screams of torment filled his mind and he jolted awake and made himself some tea as he thought over his options.

 

He decided that he would go to the Inquisitor for help about Wisdom. Maybe if he saw her in action more he would be able to place this Dovahkiin abilities and know what world she came from. He knocked on the door to her quarters and he heard grunts and screams coming from inside her quarters. Without even thinking about the context of such noises he rushed inside. He took the stairs up two at a time and the vision he saw before him was not what he expected.

 

Seranni and Bull were naked except for the jewelry around their necks and rope that stretched over Seranni’s skin in a distinct pattern that Solas didn’t see because as soon as he had seen the position they were in he immediately looked downward apologizing profusely. He began to make his way back down the stairs when he saw Josephine coming up the stairs.

 

“Is the Inquisitor up there? I have some documents that need her- ooh, oh my,” Josephine reached the top of the stairs and seemed unable to tear her eyes away from the scene before them.

 

“Oh, hey Solas, Josephine, how’s it going?” Bull asked casually from the bed.

 

“I cannot move my legs,” Josephine whispered to him and he risked a glance back to see Seranni looking at them with annoyance, Bull however, was lying languidly with his body bare before them and the world. Solas heard more steps coming up the stairs and before Solas could call out a warning he heard Cullen shout in surprise.

 

“Are you seeing this,” Josephine asked them eagerly.

 

Solas and Cullen responded with a resounding, “no!” He saw that Cullen was using a portable writing board as a shield for his eyes, Solas envied the man’s preparedness.

 

“Sorry to distract you two,” Josephine recovered first after she had gotten her fill of seeing Bull lying there.

 

Cullen cleared his throat, “Yes, we’ll leave you to it.”

 

Solas followed them silently out of the room and proceeded to make himself tea when he had gotten back to his quarters. He felt like he needed to wash his eyes in a cleaning solution of some sort. He grimaced as he drank the tea he had begrudgingly made. Oh, how he detested the stuff. As he drank he thought back to what he knew of Seranni, he had watched her in curiosity all through the Hinterlands. When he had faced the dragon with her, Sera, and Bull. He did notice that she had been relaxed, as if she were facing an annoying gnat. 

 

He had heard the stories that the Chargers had told of their Inquisitor’s battle prowess, he had heard the stories from the hunters about seeing dragon tracks in the snow around Haven. He wondered if the Inquisitor still summoned her dragon friend here at Skyhold. He didn’t recall anyone reporting the Inquisitor sneaking out, but then he hadn’t heard of any such reports in Haven either. He was on his fourth cup of tea by the time she arrived sans Bull, it was surprising since they were attached at the hip most days. 

 

“Ma falon,” he began, he had never called her ‘friend’ before, “I know I have no right to ask, but one of my oldest friends has been captured by mages, forced into slavery. I heard her cry for help as I searched the Fade for answers to your questions.”

 

“Your friend is a spirit?”

 

“Of Wisdom, yes,” he was continually surprised by how insightful and observant she was, “unlike the spirits clamoring to enter our world through the rifts, she was dwelling quite happily in the fade.”

 

“Did you get a sense of your friend’s location before you woke?”

 

He stared at her again, “yes, I will mark it on our map if you like.”

 

“Good, I’ll let Bull, Cassandra, and Cole know and we’ll head out this afternoon,” she rose and carefully set her teacup on his desk.

 

“Actually, could it just be Cole, you and I that went,” he had no idea where the question had come from, but he couldn’t bring himself to take it back or to regret it.

 

She looked at him carefully, “you heard about Halamshiral.” It wasn’t a question, but there was curiosity in her gaze. “Most wouldn’t feel comfortable around me after that without those two.”

 

“I am not most,” he raised his chin defiantly and she regarded him carefully for a moment. He had not idea why he was waiting for her judgement, nor why he wanted to be found worthy. After a long moment she nodded her approval.

 

“Alright, you, me, and Cole will go help your friend,” she turned on her heel and left. 

 

They left the next day and Solas eyed her mount warily as she laid back on the horse. However, the horse followed the path perfectly. He started a conversation about magical theory and she began teaching him some of the spells she had learned in Skyrim, such as summoning creatures from a plane of existence called Oblivion. She summoned an ethereal wolf that attacked a bear and exploded, thusly killing the bear. She summoned an avatar of flame that didn’t dissipate until it was directly attacked by a group of bandits, which upon it’s death it exploded in flames that washed harmlessly over Solas and Cole. 

 

Solas was in awe of her power, she was dangerous indeed. Then with the ease she used the Anchor, she would make a formidable foe indeed. All too soon they arrived at their destination and Solas’ thoughts turned to his friend. They were approached by the mages that had summoned and trapped his friend. He felt such anger at them that he honestly just wanted to kill them and be done with them. Seranni agreed to take down the binding ritual and Solas heard the flute song on the wind again as she used her power to tear down the circle. He said his goodbye to his friend and when he turned to face the mages he saw that Seranni had already sent them away.

 

“I sent them to Skyhold to learn, if you kill them they won’t learn and others will learn the same way they did. Then no one will learn anything new, at least this way other spirits will be safe from their blundering about and other mages may learn that spirits are not exactly the best defenders,” she didn’t look at him. She didn’t need to. Solas felt ashamed of himself that he had not thought of that. He had once been in her shoes, had once been the savior of a people. A people that now were in worse situations that mere slavery. Ignorance. 

 

“I need to work a few things out, I’ll meet you back at Skyhold,” he was about to turn away from her when she grabbed his arm.

 

“Take Cole with you, you might need someone to watch your back while you’re in such emotional turmoil.” He nodded silently to her request and stalked off with Cole following after. He gave no thought to leaving the Inquisitor alone. Instead his thoughts turned inward and he went into the Fade. Solas went to the place his friend had frequented in the Fade. He expected to feel stirrings of a new possible spirit, but instead the shadowy figure met him.

 

“Ah, Fen’Harel, back so soon?” the figure taunted him.

 

“So you are behind the mages summoning Wisdom to defend them,” he growled at the figure.

 

“Me? I did no such thing, I merely showed them a book. What they did with that knowledge is up to them,” the figure replied silkily.

 

“Who are you? Why are you doing this?”

 

The figure narrowed its eyes at him, “you mean why take control of such a powerful being at such a young age? Why the hell not? She may have uses beyond that of this world. The added bonus of torturing you is just icing on the cake. You are the reason I am trapped this way. You are the reason Mythal turned from me, Dread Wolf,” the figure began yelling at him by the end of it.

 

“Elgar’nan,” Solas whispered.

 

“I was wondering how long it would take for you to figure it out,” the shadowy figure morphed into the dark skinned man that was the patron of the Evanuris. A twisted grin graced the man’s features, sharp teeth made the grin creepier. Solas stood still as the other elf circled around him, 

 

“You betrayed us all, you locked them away. Or was your goal to lock me away?”

 

Solas remained silent as he pondered the man before him,  _ what does he want with Seranni? How can I keep my friend safe?  _

 

“Are you wondering how you can protect your friend? The truth is, you can’t. Your friend is beyond you. Her power dwarfs even yours’ Fen’Harel. And she’s still growing. That’s the terrifying part isn’t it? That she’s been alive for so long and she still hasn’t reached a plateau. Terrifying, isn’t it?” The man shuddered and his breath ghosted across Solas’ skin.  “I’ll let you ponder that while you travel back to your little hovel. Dread wolf.” 

 

Solas came awake with a start, he mumbled an apology for startling the Spirit-Boy and they made their way back to Skyhold. They arrived to find that not only had Seranni preceded them, but she had arrived on the back of the dragon that had been terrorizing the Exalted Plains. Once she had landed the Dragon in their Courtyard she had immediately taken off again with Bull on the dragon’s back. The dragon had flown off again and from the screeches that had been heard, the rumor was that Bull and Seranni had either fucked while on the back of the dragon, or had killed the dragon and fucked on it’s corpse. Either way the dragon was never seen again and the couple seemed to be quite pleased with themselves. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I took out the whole bit about Solas being her dad because I'm doing that in my other Dragon Age: Inquisition Fic, and this one is going a whole different direction.


	21. Of Magisters and Dragons

Sand. Sand was everywhere in this place, it really was quite beautiful when looked at objectively. Then again Seranni looked at just about everything as objectively as she could. The only bad thing about the Western Approach was that it had sand blowing everywhere, and not just any sand. Hot sand flew in everyone’s faces. She was glad she hadn’t brought Dorian, Varric, or Vivienne to help her in this place. They would have driven her nuts with the complaining. Sera wasn’t an option, the elf was too scared of her after hearing what had happened at the Storm Coast, then Halamshiral. 

This time however a new face was with the mage. When the group approached she thought she recognized the male elf at the Champion’s side. He was dark skinned with white hair and white tattoos that covered quite a bit of his body from what she could see. The moment the newcomer saw Bull however he dropped into a defensive stance and Bull dropped in response. Seranni stood between the two men and suddenly she knew why this man seemed familiar to her. He was one of the Fog Warriors from Seheron.

“You protect a Qunari spy?!” he shouted at them.

“I protect what’s mine,” she glared at him. She didn’t see it, but she could feel Bull’s eye on her. She felt when Bull’s eye shifted from the newcomer to her in surprise.

“Katari Ataashi,” he whispered at her reverently.

She glanced back at him when Cassandra stepped in front of the new warrior, “Katari Ataashi.”

The man glared at them and only backed off when Hawke came up to them, “Fenris, love, Bull isn’t with the Qunari anymore.”

“One doesn’t leave the Qunari, not really, not ever,” he responded.

“No, the Qunari never leave you. Bull and I have both left them, they discarded him like a dull sword and they would have killed me had I returned to them,” Seranni stepped around Cassandra and got into this Fenris’ face. “You don’t know him, you don’t know me. I suggest you reserve your judgement until you have more information.”

The group stood in shock until Hawke piped up, “so, we going to find out what’s going on here?”

“Yes, let’s stop this ritual you mentioned,” Cassandra glanced at Seranni in surprise. Seranni and Fenris were still in each other’s faces glaring at each other.

“Fine by me, so long as these Qunari keep in front of me,” Fenris growled at her.

“Fine, at least that way I won’t have to look at you, but if you even think of trying anything you should listen to the rumors people have said about my actions at Haven, the Storm Coast, and Halamshiral,” Seranni growled back and they approached the ruin where they saw a group of Grey Wardens sacrificing each other with the use of blood magic to summon and bind demons to the mages. Another Tevinter Magister named Erimond was responsible for this mess and when he started talking about Corypheus rising to Godhood, Bull sensed the anger that rolled within Seranni.

Erimond quickly ran after the fighting had begun and after the battle Fenris stared at Seranni in shock. She had more power than he had seen any mage in his life ever have. He now understood that the rumors surrounding the Inquisitor had run the rare opposite course that rumors did. The rumors did not do her justice. The rumors certainly spoke of her strength, but to actually witness her magical strength first-hand? It terrified him, he understood now why. She was terrifying, yet her magic had a sense of beauty all it’s own. It sang to the lyrium etched on his skin and Fenris vowed to remain close to Hawke until his business with the Inquisition was over.

They followed Erimond’s trail to another fortress that after they cleared it and realized he wasn’t there, Seranni took it over. They rested at the fort while they waited for some Inquisition soldiers to hold it before they continued to follow the Magister’s trail. His trail led them to a very well defensible fort that they all knew would take a full Inquisition invasion to siege. They sent word back to Skyhold and waited as they kept watch on the fortress.

“Cole and I can sneak past their scouts and let you all know what is going on,” Seranni argued with Bull and Cassandra. Fenris, Stroud, and Hawke kept wisely quiet, this argument had been going around in circles for a few hours now.

“No, I won’t risk it,” Bull looked at her with a hard look and Fenris saw the emotion behind the Qunari’s eyes.

“You won’t risk it? You know I can sneak circles around you with my eyes closed,” she was starting to sound frustrated.

“Seranni,” the sound of her name from Cassandra’s lips caused the Inquisitor to pause, “it doesn’t matter how ‘sneaky’ you are. The magister is with them and he has a connection to Corypheus which means you sneaking in there is exactly what he wants you to do.”

Seranni looked thoughtful for a moment before she nodded and sat down in a huff. She took a deep breath before saying that she was going to meditate for a bit before bed. She crossed her legs on the ground and grasped her a foot in each hand. She threaded her fingers between her toes and Fenris, Stroud, and Hawke all looked at her oddly.

“And no scouting the place with your magic, Cassandra’s keeping an eye on that,” Bull said to her and her lips pursed as her eyes closed.

They waited for the army to arrive and kept a close watch on the fortress, sending updates, sparring with each other, and of course the daily argument about Cole and the Inquisitor scouting the fortress. Fenris had finally had enough of the bickering and had finally challenged the Inquisitor to a sparring match.

“I win, you stop argueing with them and you drop it. You’ll wait for your army to arrive,” Fenris told her coldly.

“Fine, but if I win-”

“You won’t.”

“If I win, then I go, no arguments,” Fenris nodded his agreement before Cassandra and Bull could make a sound of protest. They proceeded to glare at Fenris while Hawke looked smug with herself.

Seranni stripped herself of her weapons, “no magic, no weapons, no armor, fist to skin.”

Fenris nodded his agreement and stripped himself down as well. Once they were finished they bowed to each other respectfully before circling each other. They set the circle of their sparring match and Seranni launched herself at the warrior.They were matched blow for blow until their speed began to increase and Cassandra felt magic swirling around their bodies. She had expected magic to swirl around Seranni at some point, but for magic to swirl around Fenris was unexpected, and why were his tattoos starting to glow?

Suddenly Fenris’ fist came out and hit her solidly in the chest, for a moment Hawke looked worried before he saw Seranni stumble back, but remain standing. She glared at her opponent and bowed her head in silent defeat. She kept her head bowed to Fenris as she moved away and sat on the sand next to Bull. Hawke saw Fenris shaking his hand as if it hurt after the blow and she looked at her lover quizzically.  He shook his hand in response and motioned that they would talk about it at a later time. Hawke glanced around at them all and could see that they were all getting restless.

“How about we go help that Dragon Researcher with his Dragon Project?” Hawke suddenly spoke.

“As much as we would love to, we can’t. We have to keep Adamant under close watch,” Cassandra said with a slight sarcastic tone and a glance to Bull and Seranni. At a glance it looked like the two were pouting, whether it was at Seranni’s apparent loss or the inability to go after that dragon, Hawke didn’t know.

“Well, how many people does it really take to watch a fortress?” Hawke offered.

“I have no desire to go dragon baiting, you’re welcome to go,” Fenris spoke low as he sat next to Hawke.

“I’ll stay with him,” Cole spoke up suddenly.

Hawke suddenly stood, “alright, now that that’s settled let's head out! Who knows, maybe with us leaving there will be some activity for you to report to us when we get back!”

Hawke ushered the rest of them away before Cassandra could protest and they headed to the Dragon Researcher they had met earlier that week. They then spent the majority of the day running around the Western Approach so as to gather the materials the man needed. After they had finally gotten to the point of baiting the dragon to come land near them.

Bull, Seranni, and Hawke’s eyes all lit up in delight as they spread out from each other to make smaller targets. Cassandra and Bull drew in the dragon while Seranni worked to keep it on the ground with her magic. Afterwards Cassandra would ask why no shouts had been used to subdue the dragon, she merely got a “where’s the fun in that?” for her efforts. 

 

Hawke laughed gleefully as he ran up with the warriors and attacked at the dragon with his magic. Suddenly the dragon spread its wings and Seranni yelled for Cassandra to move, but she was too late. The dragon swiped at the Seeker and she flew back and hit a large rock. There was a loud cracking sound and at Cassandra’s curse, Seranni knew the warrior woman was alive and turned her focus to the dragon. She drew the swords that Cassandra and Bull had given her.They were quite beautiful, both made of Volcanic Aurum making the blades shine with their vibrant orange color. Seranni yelled at Bull to get his attention and she pointed to the wings of the beast with one sword. The look they shared conveyed her plan and she began to run at him as fast as she could.

Hawke moved to take the dragon’s attention for a moment as Bull turned his axe handle flat between his hands. Seranni leaped and her foot landed on the handle of his axe perfectly and he launched her into the air. She used her magic to boost the force behind his lift and so for a moment she was even with the tip of the dragon’s wing. Using her magic again, she moved herself forward and landed against the dragon’s wing and stabbed her swords through the wings.She slid down the wings with her swords slowing her descent as her swords sliced through the wings.

The dragon screeched and Seranni fell into Bull’s waiting arms. He quickly set her down and picked his axe back up from the ground. They rushed at the dragon before it could have a chance to recover and Seranni aimed for the dragon’s joints and crumpled the great beast to the ground. The dragon lay there a moment as Bull held out his axe for Hawke to use. He looked at him oddly before he looked to the dragon and saw that the creature was dying, but slowly. He nodded and hefted the axe over to the neck of the dragon. He brought it down swiftly, ending the creature’s misery. Bull came over and pulled the axe out of the dragon with a practiced hand and he walked over to where Seranni was healing Cassandra.

 

The pair gloed for a moment as Seranni absorbed the dragon’s soul Hawke looked bewildered and Bull took a moment to enjoy the look on Hawke’s face.

“So why did Bull hand me his axe when he could have made the kill easier than I could?” Hawke asked of the women. “And what the hell is with the glowing?”

“We’ve each killed a dragon with the Inquisition, you haven’t,” Seranni spoke absentmindedly.

“Wait, seriously?” Hawke looked at them incredulously.

 

“Yep, we’ve been killing dragons all over, Crestwood, The Storm Coast, the Hinterlands. I especially liked the ones in the Hinterlands,” Bull grinned at Seranni and they shared another look. Bull took a deep breath and Seranni kept her healing on Cassandra active as she was scooped up in Bull’s arms, “Katari Ataashi.”

 

Hawke watched as Seranni smiled ruefully at the large man before repeating his sentiment and he crushed her lips to his. It made him miss Fenris and made him suddenly want to get back to him as soon as possible.

 

Bull set her down and she went back to healing the Seeker, she wasn’t happy about something. Something they probably needed to talk about and it would be best to do so before they attacked Adamant. Once Cassandra was healed he asked her and the Champion to walk ahead of them and he hung back with Seranni as they walked in silence.

 

“What’s going on in that head of yours,” Bull spoke gently, but she could hear that he expected her to answer.

 

“I’m not a child,” she spoke bitterly, “and I don’t need to be coddled.” 

 

“I know you’re not a child otherwise we wouldn’t be doing what we do,” the look he gave her meant he was referring to their horizontal, vertical, and perpendicular activities.

 

“Well I should hope not,” she said sarcastically.

 

“Secondly, we aren’t coddling you. The only reason we aren’t supporting it is because it’s a stupid idea that could land you in enemy hands and I won’t allow that,” Bull stopped them and he turned to face her. She looked up at his face, he was telling her the truth and was hoping that she would listen to his experience. She took a breath and sighed.

 

“You’re right, but I know what I can do, Cole can make people forget him and I,” she disappeared for a moment and reappeared to his left just out of reach, “can do that. Not only that but I  _ am _ super powerful, magically.”

 

“I see, and when were you going to add that to your argument,” Bull looked at her expectantly.

 

“I didn’t want to demonstrate or speak of it while we were so close to Adamant in case there were spies,” she explained.

 

“Still could have found a way to mention it rather than argue about it for two weeks.” Bull resumed walking with her at his side.

 

“I thought you would have trusted me to know my limits. Besides, more fun to argue.”

 

“I do trust you to know your own limits, it’s just-” Bull growled at himself before grabbing her and crushing her to him. “It’s beyond my limits to let you go.”

 

She rested her head on his chest suddenly they heard a screech to their left and she glared at the Varghest that appeared, “We were having a moment!”

 

Bull looked down at her and barely held back his laughter when he saw her throw a lightning bolt at the creature. It was light enough that it didn’t kill the creature, but it yipped and glared at her.

 

“Don’t test me Sparky, I’ll do it again,” she warned the creature. Still the creature didn’t move. She crackled lightning in a ball in her left hand while keeping her right firmly wrapped around Bull. “We just killed that dragon on the other side of the hill, you want to keep testing me?”

 

The creature’s head perked up at her words and the creature looked at them cautiously. It opened it’s maw and made a sort of bark before taking off in the direction of where they had just come from. Bull chuckled at her and moved for them to continue walking back to camp.


	22. Into the Fade

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Your turn, Katari Ataashi,” Bull wrapped his arm around her waist and bodily threw her through the portal. Bull watched the portal for a moment but turned back to face the demon when it screeched.

The army arrived and Seranni surprised Cullen and Bull by her willingness to be on the front line. When asked she just shrugged, “less casualties due to friendly fire if I’m in the front.” Bull was struck by the thought that she had been alive for hundreds of years by now, she would have fought in countless battles. She probably already had a strategy for her own powers throughout the battle. She pulled Cullen off to the side at one point and told him that under no circumstances was he to worry about the skies at any point in time. Cullen reluctantly nodded his agreement before moving onward with their plans. 

 

Once the gate was down, they released the three groups that had held back until the gate was down. One group was the Chargers led by Krem, they were to distract the Grey Wardens on the main floor of the fortress. Varric, Sera, and Dorian were to take care of the battlements on the east side. Vivienne was to direct the magical forces, Cullen the soldiers. Cole and Blackwall had joined the Chargers, which left Solas with Cassandra, Bull, and Seranni. 

 

Many of the soldiers had stopped to stare as Seranni flew through the demons before them. Her spells and shouts created allies to help her with her fighting and the fluidity of her sword play as she toppled enemy after enemy. At one point even taking down a Pride demon in a shower of blood and ichor and standing before them as if it were a relaxing day in the Chantry Garden.

 

They made their way inward towards Clarel and the magister Erimond whom they could hear arguing about sacrifice and ceremony. Soon enough Seranni came face to face with Erimond once again and despite how their last meeting had gone, he laughed when he had seen her, she soon found out why.

 

“My master sent with me a little present for you, Inquisitor!” She heard the screech from her nightmares before she saw the beast that had the form of a dragon. Her laughter rang out nearly as loud as her shout. 

 

“Dur-Neh-Viir,” the undead dragon showed up in a ring of purple energy and Erimond stood before them, gobsmacked. 

 

“I had heard the rumors, Inquisitor, but never would I have thought you to be a Necromancer,” at first he looked smugly at her, till he saw the light in her eyes. Durnehviir took flight and began shouting at the corpses that littered the battlefield, they stood and began fighting for the Inquisition before Durnehviir turned to fly off and occupy the other dragon. 

 

Soldiers glanced skyward as screeches and sounds of battle were heard for miles around. Seranni called Clarel out on her stupidity and Erimond threw his tantrum, before the Bad Dragon got a lucky shot at Durnehviir. He went down in a screech and before he hit the ground he disappeared in a discharge of purple lightning. Erimond had broke free and run for the top of the fortress and they had followed. They raced through and once they reached the top of the fortress they saw Clarel breathe her last as the Dragon killed her within his maw. The dragon screeched again and landed before Seranni and her group. The creature before them zeroed in on her and began to try to attack her, battle ensued and Seranni felt the floor of the old fortress give way to the canyon below them. She looked down at Cassandra, Bull, and Solas all falling to their deaths before she saw a glimmer below them. Without a second thought she dove from her spot on the wall and extended her left hand to the shimmer. 

 

‘Open or Close,’ a voice whispered once again from the mark. She thought as quickly as she could for the distortion to open below the group falling to their deaths and she was relieved to see a giant rift open below them and as they fell through she looked behind them to see that it closed behind them, just as her other rifts had that she had created. 

 

She felt gravity shift as she fell into the fade, she reached out to the ground hovering before her. The moment she touched the ground her body fell to the ground and air escaped her lungs forcefully. She took a moment to catch her breath before she sat up and looked around. She saw Hawke, Stroud, Bull, Cassandra, and Solas all looking around their iridescent landscape. She was just glad that everyone was alive and safe for now. 

 

“Where are we?” Stroud asked of the group. Then he turned and stared at the Inquisitor.

 

“We were falling,” Hawke commented. He turned and stared at the Inquisitor as well.

 

“Not all of us were falling,” Bull glanced at Seranni pointedly, before staring in shock. 

 

“You fall, I fall,” Seranni spoke blankly as she looked around their surroundings. “What? Have I got something on my face?”

 

“You could say that,” Cassandra motioned for her to touch the air above her head. Seranni’s hand came up and she felt it. Two horns that seemed vaguely dragon like were protruding from her forehead. 

 

“Huh, well that’s a new one,” Seranni shrugged before motioning that they get a move on. 

 

“Are we dead? If this is the afterlife the Chantry owes me an explanation, this looks nothing like the Maker’s bosom,” Hawke spoke sarcastically.

 

“No, Seranni used the mark to open a rift. We are in the Fade, physically in the Fade,” Solas’ voice held the emotion of wonder as he explained what he theorized to have happened. “I never thought I would find myself here physically… Look, the Black City, almost close enough to touch.”

 

“Pashaara, we need to find a way out. Let’s move,” Seranni spoke to the group.

 

“You’re right, that huge demon was right on the other side of that rift Erimond was using, and there could be others” Hawke agreed.

 

“Let’s get a move on then, no one ever said anything about taking a trip to the ass end of demon town,” Bull grumbled. He didn’t like being here, none of them did.

 

They began to make their way through the Fade and Seranni heard Bull grumbling to himself, “‘Hey Chief, let’s join the Inquisition! Good fights for a good cause,’ I dunno Krem I hear there are demons. ‘Ah, don’t worry about the demons Chief, I’m sure we won’t see many!’ Asshole.”

 

“I thought you were the one that sought us out, Bull,” Seranni teased him.

 

“Agh, well if I get possessed-”

 

“Yeah yeah, go for your blind side and go low,” Seranni finished for him.

 

“This is certainly not the area of the Fade I would have chosen, but to walk physically in the Fade,” Solas sighed longingly as he looked around. 

 

It seemed as if they were wandering aimlessly for hours, they found memories of spirits that Seranni wanted to help. She read the feelings and emotions of the fade around her. Solas watched her with interest and Bull noticed that every now and then he would glance off into the distance with worry. They rounded yet another corner of the maze made of stone, only this time they saw what looked to be Divine Justinia. Cassandra looked on in amazement along with the rest of the group except for Seranni. Seranni saw something different, while she did see Divine Justinia, an image overlapped what they saw and Seranni saw an ethereal spirit that glowed gold. 

 

“You know what she is, don’t you imekari,” a soft voice spoke from behind the group. Seranni whipped her head around to see her Tama standing behind them. Her voice froze in her throat and unbidden tears streamed from her eyes. 

 

“Tama?” Bull asked, confusion in his voice. Horror dawned on Seranni’s face and she slowly turned to face Bull.

 

“Hello, it is good to see that my children have found each other,” the spirit of their Tama spoke to Bull. Seranni failed to control her breathing as she fell to her knees and began hyperventilating.  _ My tama is Bull’s Tama. I killed Bull’s Tama. My dead Tama is here in the Fade. I killed Bull’s Tama. Bull and I share Tamas. I killed Bull’s Tama. He’s going to hate me. I killed Bull’s Tama. Good kind Bull who loves his Tama with everything he can. I killed Bull’s Tama. _ Cassandra knelt at her side and Bull stared dumbfoundedly at what appeared to be the spirit of his Tama. 

 

“I’m sorry Imekari, but I had to come to help you. It is a Greater Fear Demon that controls this area of the Fade,” Tama spoke gently.

 

“She is correct, the Fear demon stole your memories Inquisitor, you must retrieve them in order to escape,” the spirit of Divine Justinia spoke. 

 

Cassandra immediately stood between Seranni and ‘Justinia’, “Justinia died before Seranni was made Inquisitor.”

 

Justinia smiled at the Seeker, “You are correct Cassandra, I watched events through memories of events in the Fade.”

 

Bull couldn’t tear his eye from his Tama, wheels turned in his mind as he reeled from the information that not only was his Tama dead, but it was his Katari Ataashi that had killed her. He knew it wasn’t her choice and that the Viddasala had forced her to kill their Tama.

 

“Do not mourn me, Imekari,” she spoke gently to him, “I knew I would be found out eventually, I was raising a generation to question everything around them, including the Qun.”

 

Bull cleared his throat to give him time to recover and he looked down at Seranni. He squat down beside her and whispered in her ear, Cassandra couldn’t hear what he said despite her closeness to them. Whatever it was that he said it made Seranni stand and shakingly walk towards the spirits that had moved to stand next to each other. 

 

“You’re here to help us, so do it. How do we get my memories back and get out of here?” Seranni’s voice shook with raw emotion that she couldn’t hold back, but she told herself she would deal with it later.

 

“You must defeat these spirits to regain your memories,” Justinia gestured to the side and Seranni saw a few weak shades appear where there had previously been no shades. She glared at the shades before her and gestured with her left hand, lightning arced between the shades and they all screeched out of existence leaving behind pulsing orbs of green. Seranni walked over to them wordlessly and she suddenly collapsed as a vision appeared before her eyes.

 

Divine Justinia was suspended in the air by a grey warden’s magic as they stood before Corypheus. Justinia looked terrified at her surroundings and the dialogue followed the same pattern as what they had heard at the Temple of Sacred Ashes when they had first attempted to close the Breach. Only this time as memories flooded her mind she remembered the Divine falling while they were in the fade and terror spurring her forward, away from the creatures that followed them.

 

“She died,” Seranni spoke simply, “I’m sorry I couldn’t save you.”

 

Both Justinia and Tama looked at her with understanding, Tama spoke soothingly, “You were not meant to save us, we were meant to be here to guide you. There is a plan for the world, just take comfort in the knowledge that you are doing the best you can.” 

 

“Child, it was my actions that led to my fall at the Conclave. The orb was kicked to you and Corypheus was thwarted, you will defeat him and I take comfort in that child,” Justinia and Tama then glowed for a moment and they both turned to glowing golden spirits. “Come, you must defeat the demon here.”

 

Suddenly a disembodied voice spoke out surrounding them all, “perhaps  _ I  _ should be afraid, facing the most powerful members of the Inquisition.” The voice then laughed at them all.

 

“Likely the Fear Demon who controls this area, do not pay it any mind,” Solas spoke up.

 

“Dirth ma, Harellan. Ma banal enaslin. Mar solas ena mar din,” the voice spoke in response.

 

“Banal nadas,” was Solas’ only response. Seranni saw his face begin to close off and she rested a hand on his shoulder.

 

“The Qunari will make a lovely host for one of my minions, or maybe I’ll ride his body myself,” the demon laughed again.

 

“I’d like to see you try,” Bull growled.

 

*No one’s riding you anywhere except me,* Seranni spoke with a smirk at Bull. He smiled down at her gratefully and they continued on their way.

  
  


“Your Inquisitor is a fraud, yet more evidence there is no Maker, that all your ‘faith’ has been for naught,” Seranni looked sympathetically at the warrior beside her. Cassandra walked over to her and hugged her close.

 

“You are no fraud, you have led us well and we will get through this as well,” Cassandra didn’t even address the demon.

 

The demon made a frustrated sound before moving on to speak to Hawke and Stroud. When they also ignored the demon he moved on to speak to Seranni, “Ah, of course I saved the best for last. The little Saarebas that killed her own Tama.”

 

Seranni’s breath caught in her throat and only Bull’s hand on her shoulder kept her moving, “he’s just trying to hurt you. You know this.”

 

“Of course I’m trying to hurt her, isn’t that what she deserves after all she’s done. Killing so many innocents, torturing them with her Arvaarad. She was strong enough to resist them from the beginning, but what did she do? She bowed her head and did as she was told like an obedient dog,” the demon laughed at them a moment. “Then there is what truly happened in Skyrim. Tell me did you even feel any remorse for your initiation to the Dark Brotherhood?”

 

“And if she had resisted them she would have been killed, she did what she had to in order to survive. You will not break us, demon,” Solas’ voice rang out in the silence that followed the demon’s laughter.

 

“You think to fight me?! I am your every fear come to life. I am the veiled hand of Corypheus himself. The demon army you fear? I command it. They are all bound through me,” the demon bragged.

 

“Ah, so if we banish you then no more demon army!” Tama said excitedly.

 

“Thank you ‘every fear come to life’,” Justinia responded sarcastically.

 

Seranni smiled at them and grasped Bull’s hand in her own and squeezed for a moment, ‘we have a way to end this demon army.’

 

Bull nodded his agreement and squeezed her hand in response, ‘Yeah.’

 

They continued on their way and off to the side of the path was what appeared to be a graveyard. Seranni would have ignored it, but she saw ‘The Iron Bull’ on one of them and the memory of that other future she had seen flashed through her mind and she walked slowly over to the graveyard.

 

“Seranni, what are you-” Cassandra stopped mid question and was staring down at her own tombstone. It read ‘Cassandra: Helplessness.’ Seranni placed a hand on the Seeker’s shoulder in comfort, the warrior glared down at the tombstone before kicking at it. It broke in half and as if by magic the stone repaired itself and Cassandra moved to kick the stone again before Bull redirected her away from the tombstone. Seranni looked back down at Bull’s stone that read ‘The Iron Bull: Madness’ she pursed her lips and stalked away from it. She saw Solas staring down at what she assumed to be his and saw that it read ‘Solas: Dying Alone’. The group moved on slowly and just as Seranni was about to leave the little graveyard she saw another tombstone. ‘Seranni: Saarebas’ the sight of her own tombstone made her freeze until Solas walked over to her.

 

“Falon,” he called out to her.

 

“Yeah, I’m coming,” she turned away with a bitter taste in her mouth and she led the way to the heart of the demon’s lair. They went through a tunnel and at the end of it Seranni wasn’t prepared for the sight that greeted them. In the middle of a valleyed clearing stood a mirror image of Seranni except her lips were sewn shut and she wore the uniform of the Saarebas. 

 

“Do you see-” Cassandra began.

 

“Yeah, that’s Saarebas,” Bull responded. 

 

Seranni glared at the figure before them and before they began their approach she summoned a pillar of fire at the demon, “Stay back, I got this.”

 

The deep rumble of the demon’s laughter echoed all around them before Saarebas raised her own arm in the direction of Seranni. Fire licked at both women, but neither paid it any mind. Seranni counteracted the fire around her by coating her skin with ice and saw that Saarebas was doing the same. Drawing her swords she ran for the copy of herself and began to attack the being. Ethereal swords were summoned by Saarebas and they fought on even ground for what seemed like an age. She felt Solas snap a barrier around her and saw Cassandra and Bull coming up behind Saarebas. She saw Solas snap barriers around them and they surrounded Saarebas. Seranni growled at them and as they worked together to wear down the demon Tama and Justinia flashed a bright light above them. 

 

Saarebas disappeared and the spirits urged the group to go through the portal that awaited them. They all moved to exit through the portal, but just as Seranni and Bull approached with Stroud and Hawke the giant form of the Fear Demon blocked their path. The group of four moved behind a stone wall while the demon stood in their path.

 

“Someone needs to distract it,” Seranni spoke to them, “I’m best suited for it, go. I’ll be right behind you.”

 

“No,” Bull responded.

 

“Wardens got us into this mess, it’s a warden that should stay,” Stroud spoke with determination.

 

“Pashaara, if you don’t start running for that portal then I will move you myself, go!” Seranni ordered them all. She lept from their hiding place and stood in the path of the demon. Bull kept close to her as she assaulted the demon with her magic. The demon backed away while Hawke and Stroud went through the portal. 

 

“Your turn, Katari Ataashi,” Bull wrapped his arm around her waist and bodily threw her through the portal. Bull watched the portal for a moment but turned back to face the demon when it screeched. Just as he was about to run towards the demon a pink rope-like strand came out of the portal and wrapped around his waist. He was pulled through and as he exited the portal he saw it close behind him. He looked up to see Seranni glaring at him.

 

“If you ever do anything that stupid again I will chain you up in my closet and leave you there,” she spoke softly to him. Bull could hear the anger and determination in her voice before she crashed her lips onto his. 


	23. Skyrim and Sex

In her freetime, Seranni had taken to reading books from the library in Skyhold’s gardens. Bull had noticed in the months since the events of the Storm Coast, she had been a bit more open in her powers. This had had mixed reactions, their few templar allies were more leery around her because of it. However, Dorian and some of the younger mages had flocked to her side and were currently reading in a semi circle around her. When one young mage came upon a theory they didn’t understand, Seranni explained it as best she could. Even Vivienne had stared coming down for Seranni’s morning ‘Magical Theory’ Class. Bull had caught Dalish hanging around the outskirts of the class in the garden. 

 

It was one such morning had Morrigan approaching and adding her own arguments. She had seemed shocked by Seranni’s welcome of her debate. Bull watched the discussions and ‘class’ despite the subject matter going completely over his head. He knew Morrigan was intrigued by the Inquisitor and wanted to speak with the Inquisitor after ‘class’ that day. Suddenly, one of the younger mages, a boy, ran over to Morrigan and hugged her about her waist. 

 

“Mother, mother, do you  _ see _ what is on the Inquisitor’s hand?”

 

“Yes, Kieran, I do see, ‘tis time to return to your studies, elsewhere, little man,” Morrigan gestured for Kieran to go back to his studies.

 

“My son, never where you expect him to be, naturally,” Morrigan chuckles as she turns to look back at Seranni. 

 

“Such is the nature of children, I’m afraid,” Seranni smiled nostalgically as Kieran ran off.  _ Did she have children in Skyrim? _

 

“Did you have children, back in that other world,” Morrigan looked to the other woman curiously.

 

Seranni nodded sadly, “for a time. I had two that lived in a manor by a lake. I had built the house myself and after hiring a steward, a bard, and a carriage driver, I figured I could give a couple of kids a stable home for a while. Safer than sleeping out in the snow. Even if I was rarely around.”

 

“You are an increasingly odd creature, Inquisitor Seranni,” Morrigan nodded her respect. 

 

Seranni chuckled to the other woman, “Yeah, I get that a lot. Oh, and please by the Nine, call me just Seranni. Not ‘Your Worship’, ‘Madam’, ‘Inquisitor’, or any title like that.”

 

“Very well, Seranni,” Morrigan nodded her head respectfully again as Seranni smiled her small smile at the woman.

 

Bull didn’t know how he felt about this Morrigan woman yet. He’d asked his contacts outside the Ben-Hassrath to look into the woman and hadn’t come up with much. Apparently the woman had traveled with the Hero of Ferelden, but all Red would say about her was that she looked out for herself. Red hadn’t said anything about her having a kid, he figured Morrigan had wanted it that way so that the kid would be safer? Maybe. He kept watch over the women carefully as they talked and glanced up to see Solas watching them as well. 

 

“Hey Katari, who’s your friend?” Bull asked as he casually walked up.

 

“Ataashi, this is Morrigan, Morrigan this is The Iron Bull,” Seranni introduced them smoothly.

 

Morrigan chuckled a moment, “‘The Iron Bull?”

 

“Steel Bull was already taken by a Pit Fighter in Antiva City. Thought about viridien, but that’s taken by two exoctic dancers. Basically, Iron Bull was literally the only name left.” Bull waved off her question and moved closer to Seranni.

 

“So, will Kieran’s father be joining us as well?” Seranni changed the subject quickly.

 

“‘Twould be...most unlikely. His father helped raised Kieran for a time, but events have conspired to take him elsewhere. So ‘tis but the two of us. Your fortress is a large place, you will scarce notice our presence,” Morrigan nodded in an attempt to be meek.

 

“No, please, treat this place as your home for as long as you are here,” Seranni spoke encouragingly.

 

“I thank you, Seranni.” Morrigan seemed a little stunned at the Inquisitor’s openness. 

 

“Well, nonetheless if you or Kieran have need of anything, let me know,” Seranni shrugged and acted nonchalantly, as if the approval and acceptance of the woman at her side meant nothing, which in Morrigan’s experience meant that it meant everything to the Inquisitor.

 

“I will consider your words, Seranni,” Morrigan nodded her farewell.

 

“So, Katari, is there a reason for this interruption,” Seranni grinned up at her lover.

 

“Yeah, I seem to remember promises of chains and closets,” Bull grinned down at her.

 

“Oh, you want to be chained up, never would’ve pegged you for the type,” Seranni teased as she wrapped her arms around him.

 

“Well, maybe not  _ me _ , but you gave me some ideas, Ataashi,” the only warning Seranni had was a glint in Bull’s eye before he picked her up and proceeded to carry her through the keep of Skyhold. Through the main hall for all to see, Seranni smiled at the gossiping nobles and waved as if this were a normal thing to happen everyday. As soon as the door leading to the stairs was closed, Bull began to sprint up the stairs and once they reached their quarters he dropped her on the bed with an ‘ooph.’ He grinned down at her as she looked up at him with the biggest grin he had ever seen on her. “Watchword?”

 

“Talos.”

 

***

“Good, now strip,” his tone shifted to the harsh commands that he had started doing more and more since his declaration of Tal-Vashoth.

 

Seranni nodded silently and striped obediently as he sat on the couch that sat by the fireplace and lounged. He watched her hungrily as she slowly peeled the clothes from her body, she knew he liked watching her and seeing the marks he left on her be revealed one by one. Dark splotches marred her flesh and he eyed each of them carefully.

 

“Hmm, seems as if we’ll have to renew a few of these, Ataashi,” Bull growled at her, “come kneel before me.”

 

She immediately moved to obey him and once she was settled comfortably between his legs she moved to take off his boots, starting with his ankle brace. With practiced ease she slipped it off and laid it carefully under the couch so it was out of the way. She then unlaced his boots and tossed them to the side with his socks. Her hands rested on his knees before she asked him for his permission to go further. He nodded his agreement and she undid the lacings of his pants and slid them down with him lifting his hips from the couch to ease the sliding of the cloth down his legs. Once the clothing was free of his legs she eyed his member hungrily, but waited for his order before moving.

 

Bull groaned, “shit, still can’t get over the sight of you waiting for me like that,” he reached a hand out to lay gently on her head. She eagerly moved forward and ran her tongue up the underside of his erect shaft. Bull kept his eye on her as she tasted and teased his cock with her tongue. She began to suckle on the underside of his shaft and pulled the loose skin in between her teeth causing his eye to roll in the back of his head as he leaned against the back of the couch. She smiled at his reaction and was happy that she caused such reactions from him. She licked up the underside of his shaft again and wrapped her mouth around his leaking member. Wrapping her tongue around and tasting his precum she hummed with him in her mouth and the hand that had been laying gently on her head, fisted in her hair.

 

“Fuuuuck,” he ground out as she bobbed her head up and down while moving her tongue in an opposing motion. She had no idea where her inspiration of what to do came from, but she was glad since they caused such vocal reactions from her Katari. She had been working her way further up his shaft as she went, she hummed as she went along causing vibrations that made Bull moan above her. He had told her not to worry about taking in all of him, but she wanted to. She wanted him to feel as good as he made her feel when he ‘snacked’ on her. He growled out his warning when she got him close and she increased her pace. He came in her mouth and she eagerly sucked at his cock until she had swallowed all of his seed.

 

He pulled her up to stand before him and he pulled her down and kissed her deeply, “that’s my good Ataashi.”

 

He then pulled her to straddle his lap and lined himself up with her entrance, he ran a finger across her opening to confirm what he already knew. She was wet as a lake and with a quick glance at the floor he saw a small spot on the rug that was darker than the rest of the rug, it also looked a bit moist as the light of the day reflected off of it. He looked back up at her to see her eyes begging him to impale her on his member. He rubbed his fingers along her clit, but kept her poised above his cock. She gripped his horns for balance as her breathing became more and more uneven, she was close. He wrapped one arm around her while he kept his ministrations going and latched his mouth onto her breast, on top of a fading love bite.

 

“Please, I’m going to-, Please,” she begged, but he did not let up. His teeth scraped her skin much in the same way that her teeth had scraped his skin earlier. Her hips bucked at his hand and he popped his mouth off her breast with a pop.

 

“Stop moving,” he commanded, the response was immediate. All of her movement ceased, but her breathing remained uneven. He latched his mouth back onto her breast and his fingers resumed their actions. Her grip on his horns tightened and the fireplace flared to life as she moaned her release. As she was coming on his hand he moved it to her hip and slammed her down on his member.

 

“Fuck,” she screamed as the sensation sent her into sensation overload. He held her hips in a bruising grip and rose her off of him until his member slid out of her. He slammed her back down and set their pace as her hands began to feel numb from gripping his horns so hard.

 

“Ride me,” he ordered. His hands left her hips and while one moved up her body to grasp a nipple between his fingers, the other cupped her ass. He pulled on her nipple until she moved her upper body close to him again and he latched his mouth onto her other nipple. The hand that cupped her ass raised up to his fingertips and with his blunted claws he raked down her ass and leg. She groaned above him and he brought his hand back up to her neck before running his claws down her back, leaving red streaks down her back. He felt her shudder against him as she came again, so he stood and carried her over to the desk. His cock still buried deep inside her he lay her on the desk with her facing the ceiling. Her legs wrapped around him he moved both hands to play with her breasts as he began to move himself within her once more.

 

He moved her hands to lay above her head and squeezed her wrists, silently telling her to keep them there. He set his own pace and watched her struggle to keep her hands above her head where he had placed them. He decided to help her out with a bit of distraction. His hands went back to her breasts, but this time instead of squeezing and rolling them in his hand he brought his hand down in a loud smack. Her eyes rolled in the back of her head as she groaned at his onslaught.

 

“You are mine, say it.”

 

“I’m yours, your Ataashi,” she struggled to groan the words out as he continued to fuck her.

 

“Yes, you are my Ataashi, and I am your Katari,” his hands raked down her front causing her to scream out in pleasure. He crashed his lips onto hers as they came in tandem.

***

 

He rested his head against hers and helped her to her feet, when he saw her wobble he picked her up and took them both back to the couch. He settled her down to sit against his side and stared into the inferno that she had started in their fireplace. He breathed deep of the sage they had set in the fireplace the night before with the intent to burn it that evening, they had some more wrapped in a cupboard next to the fireplace.

 

“So what was the Fear demon talking about in the Fade, what initiation.” Bull asked casually.

 

“I was in Skyrim for a long time, Bull. I killed the old lady who mistreated the kids, but then the next night that I fell asleep, I woke up in a cabin and was told that if I didn’t kill one of the three people before me, then I would be killed instead. I could have sued my magic to get out of there, but I didn’t. Instead I killed three people, rendered helpless because they were trussed up like pigs for the slaughter. The worst part?

 

“I fucking loved it, Bull. Some dark part of me loved holding their life in my hands, being the end of their life. It spoke to some primal part of me that honestly? It scares me Bull, that’s the part of me that is the Listener. I hear their Dark Mother and she tells me who to kill. There’s this ritual that you can do to summon her vengeance upon an unsuspecting victim. She then tells me where to strike. I did this for years, Bull. I literally have mountains of gold that have been bathed in blood.

 

“Now here I am trying to save a people that in all honesty, I don’t care! I played the hero role already. Now I’m here, thrust into the center of it all over again and I’m supposed to save the world. Again! How many times am I supposed to save the world? How many worlds am I supposed to save, Bull? When does it stop?” She had gotten up to pace as she ranted and now she had knelt before the fireplace and was staring blankly into the fire. She held up her hand and wiggled her fingers. The fire danced to her fingers as if it were a puppet on strings and a small humanoid creature danced out of the flames. 

 

“This is as easy as breathing for me, but this level of control terrifies the Chantry. Terrifies the Qun. In Skyrim if you have that kind of power you’re feared. I’m feared wherever I go. The only way I can get away from that would be if I were to hide my power. So I do. I don’t cut loose very often, but that means the pressure builds. So I have to use magic in the everyday little things and that scares people, but something’s gotta give, Bull. I can’t just keep holding myself back.”

 

“So don’t. Here in this place, don’t ever hide your magic from me. Don’t hide any part of you from me.” His eye sparkled in the firelight with determination. 

 

She finally turned to face him, “okay, Bull. No hiding here.”


	24. What Pride Hath Wrought

They marched into the Arbor Wilds, joined with forces from Empress Celine the Red Templars fell hard and fast beneath the Inquisition’s forces. Seranni walked through the main camp eyeing their setup. After the captain gave her report, Morrigan came walking up to her.

 

“I wonder: is it Andraste your soldiers invoke during battle, or does a more immediate name come to their lips?”

 

“Ugh, I don’t even want to think about that right now. I still have issues being addressed ‘Inquisitor’ let alone Herald of Andraste,” Seranni rolled her eyes at the other woman.

 

“A title you really should get accustomed to,” Morrigan raised an eyebrow at her, “I digress, if your scouts report accurately, I believe these ruins to be the Temple of Mythal.”

 

Her words caused Seranni to freeze in her tracks, “What?!”

 

“I take it you’ve heard of Mythal?”

 

“Yeah, first when I was eight,” Seranni glared down at the ground and Morrigan got the impression that the Inquisitor at her side got lost a little in the past. 

 

“I see, it seems that the Eluvian he covets lies within,” suddenly explosions sounded in the distance and Morrigan looked in the direction rather annoyed, “let us hope we reach this temple  _ before _ the entire forest is reduced to ash.”

 

“Agreed,” Seranni cleared her throat and continued to make her way through the camp towards where Bull was talking with Krem again.

 

“Alright, fine, just watch yourselves out there, okay?” Seranni smiled at Bull playing mother hen again with his chargers.

 

“Yeah, yeah, we got it the first dozen times you’ve told us. We’ll be fine chief, you just worry about keeping our lovely Inquisitor happy, okay?” Krem snipped back.

 

“Lovely Inquisitor, am I?” Seranni asked him directly, “there something you want to tell me Krem de la krem?”

 

“Ugh, not you too,” he nearly whined at her.

 

Bull laughed, “hey Ataashi, boys are heading out to clear our way to that temple Corypheus was heading to.” 

 

Seranni looked to the ground, “Morrigan thinks it’s a Temple of Mythal.”

 

He gave Morrigan a hard stare, “you sure it’s a Temple of Mythal?”

 

“Yes and I get the feeling that there is another story here besides Corypheus,” Morrigan looked between the two lovers. 

 

“Yeah, but we aren’t getting into it now. Chargers! Move out, clear the way for us boys, Horns Up!” Bull turned back to his Chargers.

 

“Horns up!” they responded while making fists with their index and pinkie fingers out like little horns. Seranni nearly smiled at her contribution to the group, a glance at Krem told her that he had planned that.

 

“Alright, let’s move out,” Seranni commanded of her party. Cassandra and Bull led their way through the dense forest with Cole and Solas sticking close to Seranni with Morrigan hanging in the back.

 

“Ar lath ma da'len, to ama ma dea deal de den Mythal's ju,” Cole spoke suddenly.

 

“Cole, now is not the time,” Seranni spoke sharply to the being of Compassion.

 

“Right, sorry, but we are going to the Temple of Mythal, and it is Mythal’s will for you to be protected,” Cole responded quizzically.

 

“That was then, this is now. We need to focus on the now, Cole,” Seranni’s tone began to deaden and Bull glanced at her warningly, “I’m alright, Katari Ataashi.”

 

Bull nodded in response, they arrived at the temple and hid on their balcony as they watched what appeared to be ancient elves fighting off Corypheus and Sampson. They saw what happened when Corypheus attempted to enter the Temple. Running into the temple seemed like a good idea at the time until they were stopped by the doors of the temple. When they saw the statue of Fen’Harel Seranni and Bull both noticed Solas’ unease at the topic and suggested they move on rather quickly. They came upon their first puzzle of the temple and while Solas and Morrigan argued over translations Seranni began walking. She didn’t know why her feet moved in the pattern they did, but when she circled around the puzzle back to them she saw that the doors of the Temple were opened.

 

“How did you do that Falon?” Solas asked of her.

 

Seranni shrugged, “I don’t know, I just started walking.”

 

“The past calls to her, makes her move, her feet see the path to walk,” Cole spoke up.

 

Morrigan looked at the boy warily before looking back at Seranni, “it seems that you can lead us through the pathways of this Temple, lead on, Inquisitor.”

 

Seranni rolled her eyes at the other mage and began walking, they saw Sampson lead his red Templars through holes they had made in the Temple walls. When Bull made to follow then, Seranni stopped him.

 

“No, this place holds ancient magicks, it would be wise to show this place respect.”

 

“Your soldiers are out there sacrificing their lives and you want to play puzzle master,” Bull growled at her.

 

“No, I want to keep us all alive long enough to make it to this ‘Well of Sorrows’, please, just go with me on this,” Seranni begged him.

 

Bull drew a deep breath before exhaling forcibly, “alright. Lead the way Ataashi.”

 

Seranni nodded and led the way to the pathways that pilgrims had made before them. The first puzzle they came to Seranni stared at for a solid minute, she cocked her head to the side thoughtfully before stepping onto the path. Once again her feet seemed to know where to go of their own accord and soon all the puzzles were completed and the pathway opened up before them. They were met by more elves, while they aimed their arrows at the group, Seranni ordered her companions to lower their weapons.

 

“Ataashi,” Bull warned.

 

“Hear them out,” was all Seranni responded with.

 

“You speak wisely, you...are unlike the other invaders,” one elf spoke to them from a balcony above them. “You are old and you are powerful, yet you are not so old as us, young one, and you walk at the side of one of our own. You bear the mark of magic with his...familiar.” Seranni’s mark flared at his words. “How has this come to pass? What is your connection to those who first disturbed our slumber?”

 

“I hold no connection to them other than the fact that they wish me dead for my actions against them. They set out to kill me and destroy the world by opening a way to the Fade so their leader can proclaim himself a god,” Seranni spoke clearly. Bull gave her a warning glance, but she refused to look at him.

 

“I am called Abelas. We are Sentinels, tasked with standing against those who trespass on sacred ground. We wake only to fight, to preserve this place. Our numbers diminish with each invasion. I know what you seek. Like all who have come before, you wish to drink from the Vir’Abelasan.”

 

“‘The Place of the Way of Sorrows.’ He speaks of the Well!” Morrigan whispered to Seranni.

 

Seranni gave her a look that said, ‘oh really, I had no idea.’ Morrigan shrugged in response. 

 

“It is not  _ for _ you. It is not for  _ any _ of you.”

 

“I hold no desire for the Vir’Abelasan. I seek only to stop my enemies from gaining a weapon to use against me. Whether that means I stop them or help you to destroy it is not my decision to make.”

 

“You are wise beyond your years, Da’len.”

 

“However, I do have questions that as servants of Mythal you may be able to answer,” Seranni pleaded with them.

 

“You think now to be the time to ask such quesitons?”

 

“To ama ma dea deal de den Mythal's ju. Those were the last words spoken by my Tamassran before she died.”

 

“Fire, pain, burning. Love, it’s alright child Mythal will protect you. You are hers, you were hers before you were given to me,” Cole spoke again. 

 

Abelas considered them again, “the invaders of this Temple have shown themselves to be enemies of us both, once this is over you will be permitted to leave...and to never return.”

 

Seranni sighed before she nodded her agreement, “Agreed.”  _ Guess I’m not getting any answers from him.  _

 

Abelas almost felt pity for the young elf before him, “you will be guided to those you seek. As for the Vir’Abelasan...it shall not be despoiled, even if I must destroy it myself.”

 

“No,” Morrigan shouted before turning into a bird to follow after Abelas.

 

“Morrigan,” Seranni tried to grab her before she moved out of range, but she was too quick. Seranni sighed and moved to follow the woman who was to be their guide. “Greetings.”

 

“Mythal’enaste,” was all she said.

 

She led them through the temple on a mostly peaceful path to the Well of Sorrows. They met up and faced Sampson. With Dagna’s rune they dismantled his lyrium armor and captured him while he still breathed. Bull carried his unconscious form up the stairs to the Well of Sorrows and they met Abelas and Morrigan at the top. 

 

Morrigan stood between Abelas and the well, “you heard his parting words, Seranni. The elf seeks to destroy the Well of Sorrows!”

 

“So the sanctum is despoiled at last,” Abelas sneered at them. Seranni averted her eyes to the ground as Morrigan moved to stand beside her.

 

“You would have destroyed the Well yourself, given the chance.”

 

“To keep it from your grasping fingers! Better it be lost than bestowed upon the undeserving!”

 

They argued for a bit longer before Seranni glared at the ground she stared at, “Pashaara! You both argue over a well that belongs to neither of you. Sampson is dealt with, there is no more ‘vessel’ to claim the well.”

 

“The moment we leave, he will send more forces to secure this place. The Well clearly offers power, Seranni. If that power can be turned against Corypheus, can you afford not to use it?”

 

“If I go around using every tool made available to me to defeat Corypheus, when do I stop? Will I end up no better than Corypheus himself?” Seranni argued back.

 

“Again, you surprise me da’len, perhaps you are worthy of the Well after all,” Abelas looked to her thoughtfully. “I know not of Mythal’s will or what your protection has to do with it. However, I will tell you this: As each servant of Mythal reached the end of their years, they would pass their knowledge on...through this. All that we were. All that we knew. It would be lost forever.  _ Is _ that your desire? To partake of the Vir’Abelasan as best you can, to fight your enemy?”

 

Seranni looked to the well, “I already told you, I have no interest in binding myself to Mythal.”

 

“Ataashi, no one ever mentioned any ‘binding’,” Bull spoke up.

 

“Yet she is correct, those who partake of the Well are bound forever to the will of Mythal.”

 

“Bound? To a goddess who no longer exists, if she ever did?” Morrigan sneered skeptically.

 

“Bound, as we are bound. The choice is yours. I will go, I am sorry I could not help you more da’len,” Abelas looked to Seranni regretfully before turning and walking down the stairway of stone.

 

Morrigan immediately launched into reasons why she was the best suited to drink of the well, but Seranni didn’t hear a word of it. Instead she sat at the edge of the Well and stared into it’s depths. Cassandra and Bull were vehement that Morrigan shouldn’t drink from the Well, but when it was suggested for Seranni to drink of the Well they were even more against that. Seranni continued to stare into the swirling depths of the Well until she took out Hissrad’s dagger that she always kept at her side. She stabbed her hand with the dagger, right in the middle of her glowing green mark.

 

“Seranni! What are you-” Morrigan moved to help her, but was stopped by Cassandra. “Seeker! What are you doing?! She is harming herself!”

 

She removed the dagger from her hand and used her magic to heal the wound. She watched as her blood fell in fat droplets into the Well. The blood quickly dispersed and became absorbed in the Well. She sat back and stared into the water once more. 

 

“It calls to me, but I do not wish to answer. My power may prove too great to be bound properly, what kind of effect will that have?” Cole spoke aloud before Seranni glanced back at him, her face remained carefully blank. 

 

“Morrigan, why do you wish for the power of the Well?” Seranni’s voice rang out clear among the clearing.

 

“I wish to preserve-”   
  
“Why do you wish for the power of the Well?” There was a difference to her voice this time. As if it were infused with magical power. 

 

“I wish for the power to protect my son,” Morrigan fell to her knees as if defeated by the power in Seranni’s voice. 

 

She nodded, “a nobel reason, however it is because of that reason, that I must be the one to partake of the Well. At least now the Dragons will have company.”

 

Bull looked about to ask about that before her hand came down and the moment the water touched her lips, Seranni collapsed as the Well itself disappeared and was absorbed into Seranni. She came to rather violently as she shouted in elvhen. They calmed her down and Seranni’s attention snapped to the nearby mirror and she waved her hand.

 

“Morrigan, lead them through to your eluvian back at Skyhold,” Seranni ordered as she turned to face Corypheus, who had just appeared on the opposing balcony. “Get moving through the Eluvian after Morrigan, I’m right behind you,” she looked to Bull and saw his doubt, after what had happened at Adamant, she couldn’t blame him. “I promise, I’m right behind you, I have no desire to die just yet.”

 

This seemed to satisfy Bull because he nodded and headed for the glowing magical mirror. As soon as he went through she ran through the indention to the other side, the side with the Eluvian. Just as she reached the mirror, something caused her to pause and look back. She saw water-like magic swirl around what used to be the Well. It raised itself up and formed into a woman that floated for a moment before she launched herself at Corypheus, he was currently flying towards them. Of course, he could fly, why not? He’d already pulled a dragon out of his ass. The force of the blast from their collision sent her through the Eluvian and as soon as she was through the mirror closed off  and was shattered.


	25. Family Reunion

Seranni and Bull lay relaxed on the couch in their quarters, Bull popped pieces of fruit from a nearby bowl into both his mouth and hers. Pieces of fruit lay scattered across the floor from a mini food war they had had a few minutes ago, Seranni’s face still ached from the laughter. She sighed a deep sigh and settled further into the couch next to her lover, Bull was more than accommodating as he wrapped an arm around her shoulders when the door to their quarters burst open.

 

“Kieran! Kieran,” Morrigan’s voice sounded from the stairs. Seranni rose from the couch and met the woman by the stairs, “Seranni, I can’t find Kieran anywhere. Please, help me find him. I haven’t been able to find him all day!”

 

“Okay, Bull you check the orphanage and see if any children have seen him,” Seranni immediately moved to follow Morrigan back down the stairs. Once in the main hall Bull split off to exit the main door while Morrigan and Seranni went to check the garden. They reached the garden and Morrigan spoke under her breath before she moved towards the door that had a glowing blue light coming from it. The same door that held Morrigan’s Eluvian.

 

“How could he have opened it,” Morrigan worried to herself before bursting through the portal. Seranni hesitated to follow until Cole showed up.

 

“I will let The Iron Bull know what’s going on,” he spoke before she could ask it of him. She smiled gratefully at the boy and went after Morrigan through the mirror. The sight that greeted her upon her arrival was certainly not what she expected.

 

“Why could Kieran do this?  _ How _ could he do this?” Morrigan wondered aloud as they looked around at the landscape of the Fade. “We stand in the Fade, to direct the eluvian here would require immense power. If he is lost to me, now after all I have sacrificed…”

 

“Hey, we’ll find him. Even if I have to tear apart the entirety of the Fade itself,” Seranni tried to console the other woman, but was wary as to whether or not her words worked.

 

“The Fade is infinite, he could literally be anywhere. Whatever happens to him now, ‘tis my doing. I set him on this path,” Morrigan’s eyes searched all around them for a sign or hint of Kieran.

 

Seranni looked around them as well and saw a ball of blue light begin to float towards them, “Morrigan, look.”

 

Morrigan eyed the ball wearily and it began to move in a pattern that Seranni saw as the intent for them to follow the ball. Seranni argued that the ball was their only lead to anything, it couldn’t hurt to follow the thing and if anything attacked them then they were two powerful mages inside the Fade. Morrigan agreed with her and they followed the ball for a time. They rounded a corner and saw Kieran standing before the woman from Seranni’s dreams.

 

Kieran turned to them as they approached, “Mother!”

 

Seranni forced herself to continue and she barely heard Morrigan call the other woman, ‘mother’ in response.

 

The elder woman rose to her feet, “now, isn’t this a surprise?”

 

“That is your mother, Morrigan?” Seranni kept her tone even despite the emotions rolling inside her.

 

“Mother, daughter, and grandson, it rather warms the heart does it not,” the woman said in response.

 

“Kieran is  _ not _ your grandson. Let him go!” Morrigan kept her focus on her son.

 

“As if I were holding the boy hostage. She’s always been ungrateful you see.”

 

“Ungrateful, I know how you plan to extend your life, wicked crone!” Morrigan shouted at her mother. “You will not have me and you will not have my son!” Morrigan gathered her magic about her before her mother spoke up again.

 

“That’s quite enough, you’ll endanger the boy, do stop my daughter, Inquisitor,” Seranni was not expecting her body to move of it own volition as her arms forcibly stopped Morrigan from attacking the woman before them. Seranni’s eyes narrowed before she forced her body away from Morrigan’s.

 

“What have you done to her,” Morrigan demanded of her mother, not caring about the look of curiosity on the old crone’s face. 

 

“ _ I _ have done nothing.  _ You _ drank from the Well of your own volition,” she spoke nonchalantly.

 

“You...are Mythal,” Morrigan said in wonder and Seranni struggled to remain where she was.

 

Seranni barely maintained even breath and Morrigan looked to her concerned, “to protect you was Mythal’s will.”

 

“Yes, I was sorry to learn of her death, but it could not be helped. She knew the risks and was prepared to face them,” the woman finally spoke directly to Seranni.

 

Morrigan looked between them, “whose death?”

 

“My Tama’s, so why was it your will that I be protected?” Kieran went forward and hugged his mother as Seranni moved forward towards the being that was Mythal. “Who the hell am I to be protected for  _ your  _ will?”

 

“You ask questions to which you may not wish to know the answers to,” she looked to Seranni challengingly.

 

“You underestimate my wish to know answers,” she glared challengingly at the old witch before them. 

 

Mythal regarded them carefully for a moment, “you are not yet ready to know of your role in the universe, child.” Mytha abruptly changed the subject. You seek a way to defeat Corypheus, the Well will speak to you when the time comes. Or you may discover the ability on your own, if you do not already have the ability,” Mythal looked pointedly at Seranni. “For now, I will leave you girls in peace, once I have what I came for.” She looked pointedly at Kieran and Morrigan shook her head vehemently.

 

“No, I will not allow it. Seranni, please stop her. Please Inquisitor,” Morrigan pleaded with Seranni.

 

“He carries a piece of what once was, snatched from the jaws of darkness. You know this,” Mythal spoke to Morrigan.

 

“He is not your pawn, Mother. I will not let you use him!”

 

“Have you not used him? Was that not your purpose, the reason you agreed to his creation?”

 

“That was then, now he … he is my  _ son. _ Flemeth extends her life by possessing the bodies of her daughters. That was the fate she intended for me. I thwarted her, and now she intends to have Kieran instead!”

 

Anger swirled within Seranni still, “Kieran carries the soul of the Archdemon from the fifth blight, doesn’t he?”

 

“Yes, but he is more than that.”

 

“As am I,” Flemeth interjected, “yet do you hear me complain? Our destinies are not so easily avoided, dear girl.”

 

“Mother, I have to,” Kieran spoke up.

 

“You do not belong to her, none of us do!” Morrigan pleaded with her son.

 

Seranni closed her eyes a moment and took a deep breath, the flames around her arm calmed a bit, “why wait until now to reveal yourself? Kieran is apparently so special you had to call out to him. Why not come and actually  _ talk _ to your daughter like any other mother should?”

 

“Ah, but I am not just  _ any _ other mother. I did not know where Kieran was, she hid him so cleverly from me. You, on the other hand, I kept a close watch on you.”

 

“Yeah, I know all about your  _ close _ watch of me, I spoke with Hawke. You were the dragon that rescued me at Haven. You know I would have woken back up, such is my deal with the Daedra of Skyrim. 

 

Morrigan’s eyes widened in horror, “Twas the Well.”

 

“Always attempting to grasp beyond your reach, despite all that I taught you.” Kieran looked to Flemeth and the woman grinned back at the child, “As you wish. Hear my proposal, dear girl. Let me take the lad, and you are free of me forever. I will never interfere with or harm you again or...keep the lad with you. And you will never be safe from me. I will have my due.”

 

“He returns with me,” Morrigan spoke firmly and immediately.

 

“Decided so quickly?”

 

“Do whatever you wish. Take over my body now, if you must, but Kieran will be free of your clutches. I am many things, but I will not be the mother you were to me.”

 

Flemeth’s expression turned sorrowful as she looked between all three of her creations, however indirectly. She turned to Kieran and took his hands in her own. Suddenly a small blue ball of energy left from Kieran’s body and went into Flemeth’s.

 

“No more dreams?” Kieran asked her hopefully.

 

She smiled warmly at him, “no more dreams.” Kieran walked over to Morrigan’s side. “A soul is not forced upon the unwilling, Morrigan. You were never in danger from me. Listen to the voices. They will teach you, Inquisitor. Though I doubt I will be able to command your body as I just did?” Seranni shook her head resolutely at the woman before her, who just shrugged, “ah, to be expected of powerful beings. At least with all those voices in your head you will never truly be alone.” Mythal paused and stared deep into Seranni’s eyes, “You have my apologies, Nameless Child.” 

 

Mythal turned and left as Seranni stared after the woman, her words were true. She had never been named by her parents. Or, at least if she had been, that name had long since been lost. She was truly Nameless. The three watched her leave and once she had left their sight, Seranni turned and led them back the way they had come through to the Eluvian. Once they were all through, Morrigan immediately turned to Kieran.

 

“Are you alright, Kieran? You are not hurt?”

 

“I feel lonely,” was all he said to her before they smiled at each other. Kieran turned to leave the room and Morrigan turned back to Seranni.

 

“She wanted the Old God soul all along. Is it worth reminding myself that perhaps I do not know everything after all? To find that my mother has the soul of an elven goddess - or whatever ‘Mythal’ truly was - and her plans are unknown to me.” Morrigan sighed, “her plans are unknown to us both.”

 

“The voices of the Well tell me I already have the way to combat Corypheus’ dragon, which isn’t news to me, but I would ask of another option of the Well. They tell me that I will know when the time comes,” Seranni shrugged and leaned back against the wall of the chamber and they shared a breath of relief. At least until the great brute of a lover that Seranni had, burst through the door looking ready to face an army. Morrigan slipped herself from the room and let the couple have their moment of reunion. 


	26. Aban Astaarit, Aban Itwasit

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I'm so sorry.

Green light filtered through the trees as Seranni, Cassandra, Bull, and Cole made their way to the ruins of Haven. Corypheus had managed to open the breach once again. Seranni kept silent as they trudged through the pathways, their goal was stealth so that maybe they could have a small element of surprise. Sera, Blackwall, Varric, and Solas were working with Morrigan to take out the dragon, so they followed after the main Inquisitorial party. 

 

“Ugh, I’m getting tired of cleaning up after Coryphi-shit,” Sera whispered annoyed.

 

“You and me both Buttercup,” Varric muttered.

 

“Quiet, or do you want to give away our position,” Cassandra snapped back at them too late as they heard a draconic screech sound above them. 

 

“Tell me, where is your maker now?” they heard Corypheus taunt the scouts that had gone ahead of them. “Call him, call down his wrath upon me. You cannot for He does not exist. I am Corypheus.  _ I _ shall deliver you from this lie in which you linger. Bow before your new God and be spared.”

 

Seranni watched as her scouts stood defiantly before their enemy, “Never!”

 

“As you wish,” Corypheus growled at them. He sent out a wave of red energy that Seranni protected them all from with her barriers. He immediately summoned two lesser terror demons which were dispatched of quickly by Cassandra and Bull. Corypheus bowed mockingly as Seranni and Cole came out from the tree line, “I knew you would come.”

 

“It ends here,” Seranni glared at her enemy. 

 

“So it shall,” magic poured from Corypheus as he lifted the stones they were standing on into the air and soon they were completely cut off from any form of assistance, they were on their own. “You have been most successful in foiling my plans, but let us not forget what you are. A thief, in the wrong place at the wrong time. An interloper, a gnat. We shall prove here, once and for all, which of us is worthy of godhood.”

 

“You are the only one reaching for something beyond their grasp,  _ I _ have nothing to prove to anyone.  _ You _ came after me!” Seranni and Corypheus glared at each other as his dragon crawled its way over a ruined stone wall. Just as the dragon leaped for the Inquisitorial party, Seranni summoned a barrier to protect them and she summoned Durnehviir and they took off into the air and fought around the floating rocks. His bleached white bones gleaming as the red of his enemy’s lyrium breath struck at a rock instead of Durnehviir himself. Solas, Varric, and Sera provided support with their ranged weapons and Seranni turned her attention to Corypheus.

 

Corypheus looked to them, shocked, “You dare.”

 

“Of course I fucking dare, asshat,” Seranni growled at him. 

 

“A dragon of your own, how clever. No matter, you will fall as an example to all those who oppose my divine will,” Corypheus shouted at them as he threw attack after attack of red lyrium at them. 

 

Bull and Cassandra ran towards Corypheus, but before they could reach him Seranni used her Inferno on him and created a pillar of fire bright enough to rival the light of the Breach. As soon as the warriors reached him, she cut off her magic to the inferno and placed her most powerful barriers over the warriors. Seranni saw that Cole had stayed by her while the warriors had run ahead, she heard the red lyrium singing all around her and he looked worried. 

 

“He’s going to hurt you,” Cole said cryptically.

 

“He’ll hurt everyone more if you don’t catch up, I’ll be fine, go,” she gently prodded him and he went. 

 

Magic, blades, and screams sounded through the night as they fought with the enemy that had become the reason for the existence of the Inquisition in the first place. Seranni kept an eye on the skies as her undead confidant flew after Corypheus’ dragon. She wasn’t worried, but she needed to know when Durnie disappeared so she could shift her focus. Seranni had already used her Shouts and her energies swirled around her and she struck at Corypheus. Her magical senses told her that Durnie was leading his opponent higher and higher into the sky before he suddenly turned back and attached himself to the enemy dragon. They plummeted to the ground and Durnehviir disappeared under the damaged that was caused. 

 

“Seranni, focus on the dragon -” whatever Cassandra was about to say next was cut off by a spike of red lyrium that suddenly protruded from her chest. Time seemed to stand still as Seranni stared into Cassandra’s eyes. For a moment she swore she saw the eyes of her Tama settle across Cassandra’s eyes and it was then that she realized that they had the same hazel eyes. 

 

“Cass,” she whispered.

 

She was too far away from Cassandra to hear anything, but she saw her mouth opened in a gurgling scream. The life left the seeker’s eyes and Seranni felt as if something had snapped within her. Red creeped at the edges of her vision as she stood there fire enveloped her body. Her Dragon Aspect Shout power seemed to glow brighter around her body. She stalked forward and the dragon lay before her as her blade slid through it's flesh with an ease that should have frightened her. She turned to Corypheus and had she had all her faculties she would have gotten a perverse satisfaction at the fear that began to creep into Corypheus’ eyes. 

 

Her blades slid through his flesh easily as well, despite the crystals that protruded from his body. Finally he knelt before her, one arm off in one direction, his other arm lost to flames. Finally Corypheus’ dragon breathed its last and it’s dragon soul was then absorbed by the only Dovahkiin in proximity. 

 

Corypheus’ eyes widened in shock and disbelief, “no.”

 

“You wanted to go to the Fade so badly? Here, let me send you, luxury style,” Her left hand gripped his head.

 

‘Open or Close?’ her mark asked her.

 

‘Open,’ she thought back to her mark, swallowing past the lump in her throat. Suddenly the orb that Corypheus had once held lept to her hand and a small rift opened and swallowed the body of her enemy. She turned her head upward and extended her will to the newly reopened breach. Pain lacerated her arm as she willed the Breach closed and the orb fell from her hand, broken. Seranni turned back and walked slowly back to the body of the Seeker. 

 

Cole stood between her and Cassandra, “she’s gone.”

 

Seranni kept walking towards Cassandra, once she reached the Seeker’s body she knelt beside her. She was laid out on the ground, a gaping hole where her chest once was. Seranni stared numbly at the blood stained face of Cassandra Pentaghast. Part of her kept expecting the Seeker to get up and berate her for losing her cool in the midst of battle. Necromancy formulas rolled through her mind before she reminded herself that Cassandra had had a particular aversion to such things. She heard someone kneel next to her and her eye flickered to see Bull kneeling next to her. 

 

She bumped her shoulder to his and sat there staring at the body of the woman who had adopted The Inquisitor as a daughter. Seranni smiled at the irony of the Nameless Child being adopted by a family as Noble as the Pentaghasts. She heard Josephine approach and begin talking about making preparation to send Cassandra back to Nevarra, Seranni disentangled herself from Bull. 

 

“Don’t you fucking dare,” Seranni growled at the soldiers that had moved to begin moving her body. “She’s not going anywhere, especially not to Nevarra. She hated it there.” Her voice sounded dead to her own ears as she gathered her magic around her again. Once enough magic had gathered she slammed her hand to the ground. From the ground arose a dragon statue with what appeared to be Cassandra standing atop its head. Stone encompassed the Seeker’s body with the symbol of the Seeker’s emblazoned on the top of it. 

 

“Those that wish to celebrate can do so at Skyhold, Josephine make the arrangements,” Seranni’s voice was still deadened and Bull walked behind her.

 

“Hey kid, make sure everyone else is okay,” Bull told Cole. Seranni nodded her approval and made her way back to Skyhold. About halfway back she veered off the path a ways and summoned Durnehviir. 

 

“Are you okay, Durnie?” Her worry was as palpable as her grief.

 

“I am well, Quanariin, what had happened to cause you such pain?” Bull still found himself starting every time the dragon spoke. It wasn’t normal behavior for dragons as far as he knew.

 

“Cassandra has died,” her voice sounded wet with unshed tears.

 

“The Seeker that didn’t care for Necromancy? I am sorry for her loss, I know you cared for her.”

 

Her hand brushed through her disheveled hair, “yeah, just had to make sure you were okay. Have fun exploring, buddy.” The undead dragon shook his head wearily as she turned away from the dragon with a bright smile that was obviously fake, even to the untrained eye. She passed by Bull and whispered, “mustn’t let them see you cry.”

 

Thunderous applause greeted them as they walked through the door of Skyhold. Bull watched as Seranni mingled perfectly with the nobles and wanted nothing more than to drag her away to their quarters at the top of those stairs and fuck the sadness from her. Bull gave himself a little laugh, if only that would work. He knew that despite Seranni and her experiences, he knew that she did care. Care deeply. He knew that she needed to let her grief out, but was unsure if it would be safe to do it at Skyhold. 

 

***

Her eyes met his across the Hall and she made her way up to their Quarters, he followed shortly after and when he got to the top he saw her already naked and standing at the wall. Her palms played across the stone of their walls and Bull picked up the rope as he silently walked towards her. He knew instinctively what she needed and gently held her wrist in his hand as he wrapped it in their rope. 

 

He secured first one arm, then the other so she was spread before him and her arms reached ever outward and onward. He slowly picked up the leather flogger and bundled her hair in his hand. He pulled it taut and painful, exposing her neck before him. He licked a long line up her neck and she shuddered in his grip.

 

“There will be no Watchword tonight,” he growled in her ear. “You will bare yourself before me and I will see you there.” 

 

She groaned as her head fell back forward and she grunted as the flogger came down on her back in a sudden strip of fire down the length of her back. Again and again his arm came down and her back blossomed in a beautiful dark symphony of whimpers and moans. The flogger fell to the ground and she nearly screamed as Bull’s body was pulled flush against her sensitive back. 

 

“Don’t hold back, now summon that Butler of yours, I need a cane,” she shivered once more as a sudden rush of wetness slowly slid down her thigh in anticipation. Her fingers wiggled and her butler appeared before her, she asked for the Mace of Molag Bal and wiggled her fingers once more to make the imposing mace into a cane that was no less imposing. 

 

Bull gripped the cane in his fist and swung it through the air a few times, he grinned sadistically at her and turned back to her, all thought of her magical butler was gone from his mind. His hand caressed her ass before his breath was felt against her ear again. “You’re going to scream. You’re going to cry, you’re going to beg. Most importantly, you’re not going to hold back.” 

 

She bit her lip and nodded hesitatingly. His fingers pulled her lip from her teeth, “no cheating.”

 

His hand caressed her ass again before it left her and there was a moment of anticipation before a whistle through the air and a scream that was drowned out by the sudden thunderstorm that appeared. A long red welt blossomed across her ass and Bull admired it a moment before he brought the cane down once more. This time he heard her scream and saw the tears that she had been holding back since Cassandra’s death. 

 

“Cassandra’s death was not your fault, say it,” he ordered her as he brought the cane down once more, this time at an angle that crossed both of his earlier strikes. 

 

“Cassandra’s death was not my fault,” she cried. His hand gripped her hair again and pulled her throat exposed to him again. He grinned into the crook of her neck before he pushed his hips flush with hers and reveled in her scream as her over sensitized ass slid over his cock. Her hips rocked back against his and Bull could no longer hold himself and roughly entered her core. His hand wrapped around her neck as she leaned back against him. His other hand cut her ropes and detached her from the wall before holding her to his chest.

 

He walked her over to the balcony that overlooked the garden of Skyhold. A garden that was currently full of revelers at the destruction of Corypheus despite the earlier threat of a storm. The hand from her neck moved up to cover her mouth as his other hand gripped her hip with bruising fingers. His hips snapped up to hers and she grunted from behind his hand as her body rocked against his. She wanted to scream and squirm at the feel of his body against the welts on her ass. 

 

“How do you like that? Any one of your nobles and guests could look up and see their precious Inquisitor lost and impaling herself on Qunari cock. You love it don’t you?”

 

She groaned loudly as she nodded.

 

“Love it enough to admit it,” his hips stilled against hers and she groaned in frustration. He nodded her enthusiasm and he took the hand away from her mouth, “prove it.”

 

“I love Qunari cock,” she gasped out as his hips slowly slid against hers. 

 

“Louder,” Bull commanded as he rested her back on the balcony’s stone railing.

 

“I love Qunari cock,” she said at a normal volume of voice. 

 

Bull’s hips snapped to hers forcefully and she balanced precariously on the railing, “Louder!”

 

“I love Bull’s Qunari cock,” she shouted as his hips snapped to hers once more and his fingers wrapped around her breasts. 

 

“Damn straight,” Bull grinned before he brought her back upright and practically threw her onto her bed a few feet away. She landed with an ‘oomph’ before she looked to him, awaiting his next order. His eyes narrowed before he sat on the lounge that faced the bed. “Crawl to me.”

 

He leaned back and stroked his cock languidly as the leader of the Inquisition, his Saarebas, crawled on her hands and knees over to him and knelt before him as if nothing mattered except him and them in this room. He reached out and rested his hand against her cheek, his thumb pulled lightly at her lips before they opened and his thumb moved against her tongue. 

 

His thumb fucked her mouth and just when her hands started twitching, her body wanting release, he pulled her face to his crotch. Her eyes shuttered close as her lips wrapped around his straining member. He moved her head up and down his shaft as he growled his release into her waiting mouth. 

 

***

He sat back, drained and sated he looked down to see that same satiation on her face as well. He curled his finger to indicate for her to join him. She crawled up and nestled in against his side. She sniffled against him for a moment before his arms wrapped around her body, “I’m gonna miss her too, Seranni.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for those that have followed along with me in this journey thus far, I do plan on writing the events of Trespasser, but i'm going to make that it's own story. This way I can turn my attention to my other fic and come back to this later on. As of right now I have no idea when I'll get to Trespasser events, but there is a plan to do it.


	27. Trespasser

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The events of Trespasser, the beginning of an epic tale crossing worlds and realities.

When Josephine told her that Leliana, Divine Justinia, had called the exalted council together. Ferelden called for their disbandment and Seranni couldn’t bring herself to disagree. She had met with Mother Giselle who had went off and continued relief efforts along with Inquisition Soldiers. While she had thanked Seranni for the help of her soldiers, which had been more helpful than Ferelden’s soldiers. She filed the information away for later and moved her day onward. She went around and met with the members of the Inner Circle that had branched out from the Inquisition over the years. 

 

First she went to see Thom Rainer. He was throwing knives at a target, she winced at some of the knives in the grass and embedded in the wall. He had done an apology tours of sorts around to his old squadron. He had joined the Grey Wardens and even so let her know that his sword arm was still hers, should she ever have need of it. She smiled thickly at the reminder that Cassandra was no longer around. 

 

The last two years without Cassandra had been hard, she had gone to see the monument she had made for her friend. Cassandra’s death had hit her hard and she had traveled with the Chargers for a bit. Cole had followed her around and kept her in contact with Cullen and Josephine. They had been upset that she had been gone for so long, but they had understood why she had needed to go. 

 

She visited Varric next and he had apparently named her a Comte and given her a key that controlled the harbor. Seranni smiled at the fact that Varric had been made Viscount of Kirkwall. That had caused no end of laughter on Seranni’s end. Then again, Varric was made Viscount. That was pretty hilarious too. He was essentially the ruler of Kirkwall, and here he was giving his friends keys to the city. Harbor, whatever. 

 

Cole interestingly enough had hung around Maryden when not traveling with the Inquisitor. Seranni watched as Cole played matchmaker between Krem and Maryden. She was happy for Krem, she wondered how Bull would react when she told him that Maryden had Cole’s stamp of approval. 

 

“Yes, better. He’ll be gentle, so will you.” Cole nodded in approval as Krem walked up to the bard. 

 

“You’re with the Chargers, are you not? I’ve seen you in the Skyhold Tavern where I sing, and before in Haven,” she said the last part almost shyly.

 

Krem stopped and Seranni could see the obvious attraction, “oh, yes. I love your songs. Sometimes I’d sit up on the chair to take a better look...at your...songs.” Seranni smiled at Krem’s obvious nervousness. “The Chargers have their own song, if you’d like to hear it…”

 

Maryden smiled warmly at the warrior before her.

 

“Good,” Cole nodded his approval. 

 

“She’ll be cool with Krem?” Seranni gave voice to her worry.

 

“Strong arms, a sweet voice. Father wanted me to be happy,” came Cole’s cryptic response. 

 

“Which is that?” Seranni thought of Bull and her happiness with him. She would eventually try to convince him to go with her to Skyrim and maybe turn him into a vampire. She couldn’t die because of her deal with the Daedric Princes, but that didn’t extend to him. She didn’t want to lose him. Ever. 

 

Cole chuckled, his focus still on the couple before them, “both.” He turned sharply to her, “pain, loss, blood. You worry that he would never agree to such measures to stay together.”

 

Seranni nodded her agreement, it did weigh on her mind. She left them and went to get something to eat. She sat alone with her thoughts as she waited for Bull to arrive. Shortly before he arrived, Krem approached her.

 

“Side Arm, good, you’re here,” after her time traveling with the Chargers, Bull had told them of her old nickname.  _ “If I’m not going to use it, Katari, they might as well.” _ He had told her with a grin and a wink. “Listen, we managed to get ahold of a dragon Skull and we want to surprise him with it for his birthday.” 

 

Seranni smiled broadly at Krem before agreeing to be of assistance. Bull had already let her know what he planned to do with the Skull and quite honestly she was anxious to get ahold of it and mold it the way he wanted. Punishment Chair certainly sounded promising, in theory at least. She knew Bull’s creativeness would make it more than enjoyable for her, but for now to ‘distract’ her lover. 

 

“Hey Bull,” she nodded and smiled happily at his arrival. His lips met hers casually and she smiled contentedly. 

 

“Katari,” he nodded to her as he sat down and ordered his own food. 

 

“So, how long are we going to let them try to ‘sneak’ that past you,” she raised an eyebrow at him with a teasing smile.

 

He shrugged, “how long can you ‘distract’ me?” he suddenly leered at her so cheesily that she couldn’t help but laugh. Luckily for the chargers her laugh covered up a small boom from Rocky’s attempt to move the skull. 

 

“So how you feel about Krem and Maryden?”

 

He grumbled for a moment, “yeah, they seem rather caught up in each other rather suddenly.”

 

“Oh, please. You saw their goo goo eyes in the tavern more than I did,” she slapped his arm playfully.

 

“Yeah, but she’s a bard, oh look, they have the skull in position.”   
  


“Surprise!” Krem shouted jovially as the Chargers positioned themselves around the skull. Seranni laughed to herself as Rocky had crawled on top of the skull and looked to be riding the skull. 

 

“Aw, you guys,” he winked at Seranni and he gathered his Chargers in a large bear hug, grabbing as many of them as he could in his arms. She laughed until her sides went sore at Krem’s grumbling, until the bells began tolling for the start of the talks. Seranni grumbled to herself before she kissed her lover goodbye and walked as if on her way to the gallows. 

 

Lelianna, Divine Victoria,  _ whatever, _ introduced them and did the normal pomp and circumstance of such meetings, once that was finished, Josephine got things underway, “Thank you your holiness. Now Arl Teagan, as to your concerns…”

 

“The Inquisition established an armed presence in Ferelden territory. You outright seized Caer Bronach in Crestwood!”

 

Seranni’s brow knitted in annoyance, “so I was just supposed to leave it infested with bandits to terrorize Crestwood? Had you or any Lord of Ferelden contacted me about manning the keep, then I would have been more than happy to relinquish control of a Ferelden Keep to a Ferelden Flag. However, the fact of the matter is, no Lord contacted me of such a wish so I maintained my presence there to ensure the safety of the people. Something I think many of you here have forgotten.”

 

They sat in silence, Arl Teagan had no argument for that, he nodded his head, “so if I were to express a want to man the keep, you would relinquish control, just like that?”

 

“Just like that,” Seranni leaned back in her chair. “The reason the Inquisition existed was to bring peace to Ferelden and Orlais, we have done that. Corypheus is dead, the Inquisition is no longer needed to maintain that peace if your armies will just do their jobs.

 

“Mother Giselle herself told me that my troops were infinitely more helpful than Orlais troops in reference to refugees. Neither side is perfect, but the Inquisition was there to pick up the pieces you wouldn’t. The only reason I would have to keep the Inquisition around is to care for the people of these lands. For  _ they _ are the ones to suffer for your lack of action.” Seranni saw a soldier standing at the door wanting her attention. She took a deep breath and stared the three members of the Exalted Council. 

 

Leliana looked proud, everyone else looked stunned. “Now if you will all kindly excuse me there is a messenger over there that, knowing my luck with put me at the center of saving your collective asses. Peace bitches!”

 

Seranni stalked from the room and the door slammed shut before Josephine sighed and Arl Teagan began shouting for the Inquisitor to return. Seranni smiled to herself and followed after to soldier. He informed her that Leliana would call a recess and that she wished to speak with Seranni. She was led to a storage shed on the other side of the palace. What she saw there made Seranni stand up short. 

 

A qunari warrior in full armor. Dead. “How did he get into the winter palace?” Leliana’s question broke through the fog that had begun to roll in Seranni’s mind. “You were a Saarebas, what do you see?”

 

“He’s a warrior, not a spy, he wasn’t here to infiltrate, I think he was sent here by accident. Delirious last throes of death. Now the question is, how did he get here and where did he come from?”

 

“Ah, I had almost forgotten your penchant for good questions, Inquisitor,” Leliana smiled at her. 

 

Seranni smiled fondly, “think you and Josie can handle the diplomats while I take a look around?” Divine Victoria assured her that Seranni would be free to look around and figure things out while the Diplomats were left to argue in circles. 

 

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Eluvians. It had to be eluvians. That’s how the Qunari were getting around. Bull, Cole, and Dorian helped her to investigate where the Eluvian led to. So far it had led them to a corner of the Crossroads. Seranni’s magic automatically began searching for the feel of Skyrim’s magic, she let her magic wander as they explored. They found a sort of sanctuary where Fen’Harel apparently stowed away freed elven slaves. The entire area littered with bodies of Qunari. 

 

She had felt Solas’ magic as the one to cause so much death and destruction to the Qunari. In her first bout of investigating she learned that apparently Mythal and Fen’Harel had been close. Close enough to have secret greetings anyway. Her Fade Anchor reacted strongly to the magic in the Valley. By then some of the artwork on the walls of Fen’Harel had been niggling in the back of her mind. They had found a few papers of plans of the Qunari attacking the Winter Palace and they decided to head back.

 

She found herself meeting with her old War Council as they discussed her findings. “One dead Qunari was bad enough, now we have more and they’re hostile.” Bull stood at her side as Cole lurked on top of a bookshelf in the room somewhere. 

 

“This makes no sense, the Inquisition has no quarrel with the Qunari,” Josephine started. 

 

“You mean other than the fact that it’s Inquisitor is a former Saarebas whose lover is a former Ben-Hassrath Agent? Yeah, no quarrel what so ever,” Bull grumbled sarcastically. 

 

Josephine blushed, “what I mean is neither of you have done anything to openly antagonize the Qunari, even with Bull’s break from them, the Dreadnaught was saved and the mission was ultimately a success.”

 

“Even if it made them terrified of me, but then they would be attacking me, the Inquisition, not the Winter Palace,” Seranni took note. 

 

“In any event, I’ve had the mirror placed under guard,” Cullen reported.

 

Seranni nodded her approval, “inform the Palace guard as well, have them join the Inquisition guards.”

 

“Inquisitor?”

 

“We are in a precarious situation, I’m sure there are more than a few ruffled feathers from my outburst during negotiations?” At Josephine’s nod, Seranni continued. “Then if they find out we’ve been hiding a possible Qunari attack from them, they won’t be happy. This way if we involve the Palace Guard, maybe add in a few Ferelden soldiers. We’re trying to broker a peace, having all parties involved in this will smooth things over, makes sure they know the Inquisition is in charge, but have them help and they’ll feel better.”

 

Josephine’s face brightened with approval, “yes, that would work!”

 

Cullen sighed a moment, “first the Blight, then Mages and Templars, then Corypheus, and now this! Can’t we go ten years without the world falling to pieces?”

 

Seranni chuckled, “now you know how I felt in Skyrim, constantly hunting down dragons.” Seranni took a breath and continued, “while you lot get that set up, I’ll go back to the Crossroads. See if we can’t investigate further.”

 

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

This trip through the eluvians yielded a Qunari mining operation for more lyrium, that’s not even mentioning the red lyrium they found as well. In the middle which they found a man in hiding, at first he told them to stay back till he saw her green hand glowing brightly in the dim. 

 

“Oh, your hand, you’re the Inquisitor?”

 

“No, I’m a saarebas, now what are you doing here in the Deep Roads, surrounded by Qunari?”

 

“We don’t have much time,” his tone suddenly pleading, “please, what the Viddasala is doing?”

 

Seranni and Bull froze. “Viddasala?”

 

“You have to stop her!” He pleased with them, “I don’t care if you serve Fen’Harel, someone has to stop her.”

 

“Why do you think we serve Fen’Harel?”   
  


“The Viddasala said it, said you bear his mark,” he nodded to her hand. Seranni’s eyes narrowed thoughtfully.

 

“No mentionings of a freed Saarebas, nor her Ben-Hassrath turned Tal-Vashoth lover?”

 

“Wait, seriously? Those rumors are true?” he asked in wonder.

 

Seranni shrugged, “well, yeah. But what is the Viddasala doing?”

 

“This is a Lyrium mining and refining center. She’s giving the Saarebas Lyrium to make them stronger,” the man sat down with the weight of his words.

 

Seranni and Bull shuddered in fear at what the Viddasala was trying to unleash.  _ If Fen’Harel and his agents were trying to stop this, then who were they to stand in his way? _ “It’s part of something she calls Dragon’s Breath. There’s more to it than that, but I couldn’t find out what.”

 

“Qunari don’t like it when you ask too many questions,” she had seen the results of that.

 

“She said it would ‘save the south’. That can only mean one thing.”

 

_ And all together now,  _ “Invasion,” Bull, Seranni, Cole, Dorian, and mystery man said at the same time.

 

“This mine is the only source of lyrium the Qunari have,” Seranni perked up at that.  _ If they could disable the mine, then they could stop the invasion.  _ “They’re using gaatlok, to mine.”  _ Oh this just gets better and better. _

 

“Hells fucking yes, you get out of here and let us have our fun, let’s go sabotage a mine,” Seranni skipped off with Bull and Dorian shaking their heads in amusement. 

 

The sabotage went off without a hitch and they all kept safe of the explosions, “So, who wants to tell Josie we’re most likely at war with the Qunari? No takers,” Seranni sighs, “they’re going to kill me.”

 

They returned and this time they convened their War Council with Arl Teagan and the Orlais ambassador,  _ Comte something? Whatever, he was a pompous windbag who did nothing but provide platitudes, luckily the palace guard have proved more reliable than him. _ Seranni gave her report of what she had found as Cole disappeared to sit among the top of the book shelves. Bull stood at her side and the two newcomers eyed him warily. Bull acted like it didn’t bother him and it wasn’t even happening. 

 

“What did they mean when they said you bear Fen’Harel’s mark?” Leliana pondered.

 

“Actually, I researched that orb rather extensively when I traveled around with the Chargers. It was so vital to Corypheus’ ritual I figured it warranted a closer look. I found out that the orb was actually an elven foci that belonged to Fen’Harel. It gave me the mark when I touched it. Only reason it’s no longer trying to kill me is because I blended the magics with my own. Mind you I wouldn’t have been able to do that if-” Bull suddenly cleared his throat extra loudly, “sorry, magical theory, tend to ramble. Anyway, Fen’Harel’s Foci, Fen’Harel’s mark.” 

 

“Then how did Corypheus get Fen’Harel’s foci in the first place,” Cullen asked. 

 

Seranni shrugged her shoulders and grunted that she didn’t know. “Now on to the matter which occurred shortly before we conveened, Arl Teagan,” Josephine nodded to the man. 

 

“Yes, one of your Inquisition soldiers stopped and questioned a servant, the servant was detained and searched. This was found on his person,” He placed a scrap of paper on the table before them. “Divine Victoria took a look at it, it’s-”

 

“Instructions on where to place gaatlok bombs throughout the winter palace and telling him where to go when he is done. I’ll investigate this eluvian ‘marked by the bookcase’ with Bull, Cole, and Dorian.” 

 

“You will take two more with you, Inquisitor, if you please. One of Ferelden, one of Orlais, if you truly wish for full disclosure in this matter, we cannot sit idly by.”

 

Seranni’s eye twitched in annoyance, she  _ did _ want the nobles to step up, but the least she could do was request her warriors. “Vivienne, of Orlais and Varric Tethras. Happy?” The two men looked to each other and nodded, “Good, so long as everyone is happy.”

 

Leliana made plans with Josephine and the nobles to search other locations for where this ‘dragon’ could strike. They dismissed and Seranni was left with little to to but wait for preparations to be made for a bit. She found herself on a balcony overlooking a set of gardens. Cole hovered, ever present in some tree branches above them. Bull hovered at her shoulder and she just let her mind wander. So she was a little caught off guard when Varric came and sat next to her. 

 

“I miss her too, Inferno,” his breath smelled lightly of alcohol, she couldn’t blame him. She smiled and held her hand out. He smirked at her before he handed her his flask. “It was her favorite wine. I was going to tease her with it, but after- I kind of had a moment of weakness and drank the whole bottle while screaming at the Maker,” he chuckled to himself. 

 

“Now it’s a way to remember her,” Seranni brought a hand up to her hair, “just as I do my hair for her.” 

 

Varric smiled at her and they sat in silence for a while until Dorian and Vivienne walked up. “Time to investigate these Qunari,” Dorian prompted. 

 

Varric and Seranni nodded their agreement as Cole dropped down to the ground. They gathered their gear and headed for the Eluvian. First they found an ancient elven library. Seranni immediately summoned Mora and he agreed to stick around and check out the books. He would contact her if he found anything interesting. As they started leaving, Seranni heard a high pitched squeal of pure joy. She turned around and where Mora once stood was a ball of darkness with tentacles sprouting every which way rolling around on the floor as it squealed in happiness. 

 

Seranni quickly turned around and pushed everyone else onward before they could see the odd sight, which could possibly lead to their deaths.  _ Better not chance it _ . “Onward, after the Viddasala.” 

 

It was about the time that she was staring blankly a mural which was basically telling her that Solas was Fen’Harel himself, that Seranni heard Mora pop into existence next to her babbling about Solas rescuing the elven slaves and creating the veil and building a point to Solas being Fen’Harel when Seranni pointed to the mural behind him.

 

“Oh, you already know. Well, bye then, back to the library,” Mora disappeared and Seranni sat down, feeling utterly exhausted.

 

“Ya know, if you think about it, the events of the Blight only aided and were manipulated by Morrigan. Then the events of Kirkwall were manipulated by Anders so he could blow up the Chantry. Now Solas has orchestrated the entire Inquisition. Makes me worry for the future. What mage is going to shake the world up next?”

 

“Survivor of the Breach,” that voice sent shivers down Seranni’s spine. Despite her power, despite her age, nothing like childhood nightmares to render you helpless in the face of them. “My little Saarebas, how good to see you all grown up. And Inquisitor too? I’m impressed. I’m surprised the south would have allowed you to live, untrained worm!” She shouted at them. 

 

Seranni blinked out of her feat, _untrained?_ _I’ll show you untrained, bitch_. She ordered her soldiers to attack and Seranni signaled for them all to stay back. She wanted to show off a bit. “Mul-Qah-Diiv.”

 

Viddasala’s face fell at the sight of little Saarebas’ raw power. Her lord, Elgar’nan should be pleased. Despite her pride at Saarebas’ power, she couldn’t help but be a bit afraid too. In what seemed like no time at all, her troops were laid to waste and Viddasala gave in to the urge to run for the Eluvian. They chased after Viddasala, but just as they were about to catch up, they found a rather important piece of evidence that Lelianna and the others should know about right away. 

 

Seranni gave in and they made their way back to the Winter Palace where they found out that this had not been the Qunari’s only target. Her fears were realized when they confirmed Gaatlok deliveries to Denerim’s palace, as well as Val Royeaux and at various Noble estate across the Free Marches.” 

 

“The Qunari are one order away from destroying every noble house in the known world,” Cullen said heavily. Shortly after that all five of them began arguing about one thing or another until Seranni slammed her hand down on the table. 

 

“Bull, Cole, Varric, Vivienne, Dorian, and I are going after the Viddasala. After she and the Qun are dealt with, then we will discuss matters. For now, just keep each other alive, surely you lot can manage that,” Seranni stalked from the room and headed back for the Eluvian. 

 

Suddenly, Seranni and Bull found themselves in Par Vollen. Despite their many years away, it still smelled like  _ home _ . Their first home. The home that had raised them. Seranni shook such thoughts away and moved onward. Shattered Eluvians littered their walkway as they made their way closer to the center of the fortress. They finally made their way to the inner workings of the fortress and discovered, that operation Dragon’s Breath. Was. In Fact. A dragon. Seranni nearly laughed aloud at the lunacy of it all. 

 

“Teth a! Bass!” a sten shouted out in warning, so much for the element of surprise.

 

“Inquisition! Nehraa ataashi-asaara meravas adim kata!” Troops moved forward at her orders. “Hissrad!”  _ Ah, so now was the time they would call on him, _ “Now, please. Vinek Kathas.” 

 

“No thanks, ma’am,” Bull twirled his axe and nodded at Seranni, “got everything I need right here.” 

 

Seranni smiled and they fell into the familiar dance of battle. The little troops fell under either hers or Bull’s blade, she didn’t care, it was Vivienne’s turn for the Dragon killing blow. Seranni smiled, she always did have a flare for the dramatic as she called forth her Dragon Aspect powers once more. Her skin tingled at such quick use of the ability. Finally the Dragon fell and as the Viddasala ran for her exit Eluvian, Seranni followed at a stalking pace. The dragon’s soul swirled around her and she smiled at the fear she saw in the Viddasala’s eyes. She quickly ran through the Eluvian, and they followed. They had almost caught up to her when she had left her personal Saarath Saarebas in her wake. Seranni quickly cut down the Saarath and went through the Eluvian, once through she realized something was wrong when the eluvian closed after her. 

 

She heard Solas trying to warn Viddasala away, “My lord, Elgar’nan will protect-” she had suddenly turned to stone and Seranni didn’t know what she felt in that moment. The face of so many childhood nightmares, turned to stone. Forever. She approached Solas slowly.

 

“I suspect you have questions,” he said calmly.

 

She nodded slowly, “you could say that. First off, you’re Fen’Harel? Like Flemeth was Mythal? What is so fucking special about me that you elven gods are meddling so much in my life?”

 

“We were never gods.”

 

“What are gods but super powerful people who grew so powerful they ascended to godhood.” His eyebrow quirked questioningly at her quick assessment, she waved him off, “had a lot of time to think about Talos and his beginnings, long story. Either way, what the hell? You’re Fen’Harel, this mark is Fen’Harel’s! You created the Fade, why would you drag us into dealing with the Qunari for you if you could just turn them to stone, unless- You didn’t want the Qunari. You wanted me.” Seranni’s fist clenched in anger. “You wanted my arm.”

 

Seranni began tearing her armor from her torso. Once her chest was laid bare, Solas saw that the tendrils of his mark had spread and mingled. There was no possible way to disentangle his mark from her. Solas closed his eyes sadly, “I am sorry, ma Falon, but I cannot have you interfere. I cannot take the mark from you, but neither can I have you interfere.” 

 

She felt him gather his magic around him and she suddenly found herself rooted to the spot, held by both his magic and the Vir’Abelesan within her. When he spoke his voice was ringed with power, “You are hereby banished from these realms, Inquisitor Seranni Pentaghast.” 

  
Seranni was enveloped in a bright light and she disappeared from his sight. Solas shook his head and had the feeling that was going to come back to haunt him. Solas turned his head and faced the eluvian she had come through,  _ and now for my insurance policy against her _ . Solas walked with purpose and activated the Eluvian before him, his target, The Iron Bull.


End file.
